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diff --git a/Build/source/utils/xindy/doc/faq-1.html b/Build/source/utils/xindy/doc/faq-1.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..31fcfba7abd --- /dev/null +++ b/Build/source/utils/xindy/doc/faq-1.html @@ -0,0 +1,169 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9"> + <TITLE>XINDY FAQ: General Questions</TITLE> + <LINK HREF="faq-2.html" REL=next> + + <LINK HREF="faq.html#toc1" REL=contents> +</HEAD> +<BODY> +<A HREF="faq-2.html">Next</A> +Previous +<A HREF="faq.html#toc1">Contents</A> +<HR> +<H2><A NAME="s1">1. General Questions</A></H2> + +<H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1 Why a completely new indexing tool? <CODE>makeindex</CODE> works fine!</A> +</H2> + +<P> +<P>With the <EM>International MakeIndex</EM> project, Joachim Schrod and +Gabor Herr have shown that adding extensions to +<CODE>makeindex</CODE> is a difficult job. Thus we have decided to develop a +new indexing tool from scratch. The new tool is based on a new +requirements analysis and offers very interesting features for +processing very complex indexing schemes. The resulting index model is +described in: +<P> +<OL> +<LI> Roger Kehr, <SF>xindy</SF> -- <EM>A Flexible Indexing System</EM>, +Proceedings of the EuroTeX'98, St. Malo, France, March 1998 +</LI> +<LI> Roger Kehr, <SF>xindy</SF> -- <EM>A Flexible Indexing System</EM>, +Technical Report No. 11/1997, Computer Science Department, Darmstadt +University of Technology, 1997. Also accessible from the xindy +homepage. +</LI> +<LI> Roger Kehr, xindy <EM>Ein Flexibles Indexierungssystem</EM>, +Studienarbeit FB Informatik, TH-Darmstadt, November 1995. +</LI> +<LI> Joachim Schrod, <EM>An International Version of MakeIndex</EM>, +Cahiers GUTenberg, 10, p81-90, 1991 +</LI> +<LI> Joachim Schrod and Gabor Herr, <EM>MakeIndex Version 3.0</EM>, +Technical University of Darmstadt, 1991 +</LI> +</OL> +<P> +<P> +<P> +<H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2 I'm an old <CODE>makeindex</CODE> wizard. What does <SF>xindy</SF> offer that <CODE>makeindex</CODE> doesn't?</A> +</H2> + +<P> +<P>Here are the most important differences between <SF>xindy</SF> and +<CODE>makeindex</CODE>: +<P> +<P> +<DL> +<P> +<DT><B>Internationalization</B><DD><P><SF>xindy</SF> can be configured to process +indexes for many languages with different letter sets and different +sorting rules. For example, many roman languages such as Italian, +French, Portuguese or Spanish contain accentuated letters such as +À, Á, ñ. Other languages from northern Europe +have letters like Ä, Ø, æ or ß which often +can't be processed by many index processors not talking about sorting +them correctly into an index. The <SF>xindy</SF>-system can be configured +to process these alphabets by defining <EM>sort</EM> and +<EM>merge-rules</EM> that allow expressing of language specific rules. +One example of such a rule would be +<P> +<PRE> +(sort-rule "ä" "ae") +</PRE> +<P>defining that a word containing the umlaut-a will be sorted as if it +contained the letters <CODE>ae</CODE> instead. This is one form of how the +umlaut-a is sorted into german indexes. With an appropriate set of +rules one can express the complete rules of a specific language. +<P> +<DT><B>Location classes.</B><DD><P><CODE>makeindex</CODE> is able to recognize and +process arabic numbers, roman numerals and letter-based alphabets as +specifiers for the indexed location. Simple composite structures of +these are also possible to process. This implicit recognition scheme +has completely been dropped in favour of a well-defined and very +powerful declaration scheme called <EM>location-classes</EM>. Thus, +<SF>xindy</SF> initally does not know any location-class by default and +must be instructed to accept certain location-classes. A typical +declaration might look like: +<P> +<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE> +<PRE> +(define-location-class "page-numbers" ("arabic-numbers")) +</PRE> +</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>This declares that page numbers consist of the enumeration of the +arabic numbers. The arabic numbers are referred to as <EM>alphabets</EM>. +Users may use the pre-defined alphabets arabic numbers, roman +numerals, etc. or define new alphabets as needed. See the tutorial +that comes with this distribution for some examples. +<P> +<DT><B>The concept of attributes.</B><DD><P>With <CODE>makeindex</CODE> one can assign a +markup to each index entry using the encapsulators (usually following +the vertical bar sign in an index entry command). For example in the +specification +<P> +<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE> +<PRE> +\index{xindy|bold} +</PRE> +</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE> +<P>the encapsulator is <CODE>bold</CODE> which encapsulates the page-numbers in +the markup-phase. An additional TeX-macro must be supplied to assign +some markup with the page number. This concept has completely been +dropped in <SF>xindy</SF> in favour of a more powerful scheme called +<EM>attributes</EM>. Attributes can be used to (i) define several grouping +and ordering rules with locations and we can define (ii) markup-tags +for the document preparation system. +<P>The result of this design decision is that the user is required to +define the attributes in the style file and not in the document +preparation system. The reasons lie in the more powerful markup scheme +of <SF>xindy</SF> which can't be specified in the document processor anymore. +In fact, the <CODE>makeindex</CODE>-like markup is only a small subset of +<SF>xindy</SF>s features. +<P> +<DT><B>Cross references.</B><DD><P>Cross-references were implemented in +<CODE>makeindex</CODE> with the encapsulation mechanism, which only served for +markup purposes. This has been completely separated in <SF>xindy</SF>. +Here we distinguish cleanly between attributes and cross references. +This makes it possible to implement <EM>checked</EM> cross references, +i.e. cross-refernces that can be checked if they point to an existing +index entry instead of somewhere ``behind-the-moon''. +<P> +<DT><B>Less command-line options.</B><DD><P><SF>xindy</SF> has dropped the usage of +command-line options in favour of a well-defined indexstyle +description language. Thus, options that could be activated at the +command-line level of <CODE>makeindex</CODE> must now be specified in the +indexstyle file. This sounds more restrictive than it is, because the +indexstyle files can be composed from several modules which makes it +possible to write style files in just a few lines of code. +<P> +<DT><B>Raw index parser.</B><DD><P>The parser built into <CODE>makeindex</CODE> has +completely been separated from the core <SF>xindy</SF> system. <SF>xindy</SF> +understands a well-defined specification language for the raw index +that is completely different from <CODE>makeindex</CODE>, but in our opinion +more maintainable than the <CODE>makeindex</CODE> format. This requires a +separate filter that transforms arbitrary indexes to the <SF>xindy</SF> +format. An example filter is the program <CODE>tex2xindy</CODE> that comes +with this distribution. +<P> +</DL> +<P>Summed up, some of the implicit assumptions made by <CODE>makeindex</CODE> +have been replaced and now burdend to the user. The reason is that +many of <CODE>makeindex</CODE>'s assumptions were no longer valid in +multi-language environments or documents with arbitrary location +structures. This also characterizes <SF>xindy</SF> more as a framework +instead of a end-user-tailored product. One should notice that writing +an appropriate index style is an essential part of the document +preparation process and should be tailored to each document anew. +<P> +<P> +<P> +<P> +<HR> +<A HREF="faq-2.html">Next</A> +Previous +<A HREF="faq.html#toc1">Contents</A> +</BODY> +</HTML> |