| Document Style Semantics and Specification Language | |
|---|---|
| Paradigm | |
| Family | Scheme |
TheDocument Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL) is an international standard developed to providestylesheets forSGML documents.[1]
DSSSL consists of two parts: a tree transformation process that can be used to manipulate the tree structure of documents prior to presentation, and a formatting process that associates the elements in the source document with specific nodes in the target representation—the flow object tree. DSSSL specifications are device-independent pieces of information that can be interchanged between different platforms. DSSSL does not standardize the back-end formatters that generate the language's output. Such formatters may render the output for on-screen display, or write it to acomputer file in a specificformat (such asPostScript orRich Text Format).[1]
Based on a subset of theScheme programming language, it is specified by the standardISO/IEC 10179:1996. It was developed byISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 (ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, Subcommittee 34 - Document description and processing languages).[2][3]
SGML contains information in a machine-readable but not veryhuman-readable format. A "stylesheet" is used to present the information stored in SGML in a more pleasing or accessible way. DSSSL can convert to a wide range of formats, includingRTF,HTML, andLaTeX.
DSSSL is compatible with any SGML-based document type,[1] but it has been used most often withDocBook. In 1997, software engineer Geir Ove Grønmo published asyntax highlighting language definition forKEDIT.[4]
With the appearance ofXML as an alternative to SGML, XML's associated stylesheet languageXSL was also widely and rapidly adopted, from around 1999. Although DSSSL continued to be in use within the shrinking SGML field, XSL was very soon in use more extensively, and by more coders, than DSSSL had ever achieved. This was emphasised when previous SGML strongholds such asDocBook converted from SGML to XML, and also converted their favoured stylesheet language from DSSSL to XSL.
Sometime in or before 1994,James Clark (programmer) began drafting a "DSSSL Lite" specification for the consideration of theWorld Wide Web Consortium, since DSSSL was thought to be too complex for theWorld Wide Web.[5]
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