About XProcRef
The XProcRef site contains reference information about the built-in steps in the XProc programming language, targeted at language users/programmers.
Please note that the XProcRef step descriptions are non-normative. It’s a translation from the official, normative, specification into more user-friendly terms. And, yes, things get lost in translation. Sometimes formulations are simplified to make their meaning clearer, some details are left-out because they are only important for very rare edge-cases, etc. So if you’re ever in doubt, remember that the XProc specification represents the truth!
There is an underlying reason for all this. In 2020 I published a book called “XProc 3.0 - Programmer Reference” (for sale here):
Appendices A and B in the book describe the step library. However, due to time constraints, the step descriptions were copied from the formal XProc specification. This leaves much to be desired for users of the language: the specification is aimed at XProc processor implementers, not at language users. To correct this, this site contains reference information about the XProc steps, written from a more user-oriented perspective. With the increasing popularity of XProc, I hope this fills a need.
Help is always welcome. If you have anything to say, add or comment about something on XProcRef, please raise an issue. Or for the more adventurous types: fork the XProcRef GitHub repository, make the change yourself, and create a pull
request. There is a little documentation in the doc/ subdirectory.
Erik Siegel (erik@xatapult.nl)
Site published : 2025-02-06 10:44