The DSSSL Book, 2004
An XML/SGML Programming Language

DSSSL (Document Style Semantics and Specification Language) is an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 10179: 1996) published in the year 1996. DSSSL is a standard of the SGML family (Standard Generalized Markup Language, ISO 8879:1986), whose aim is to establish a processing model for SGML documents. For a good understanding of the SGML standard, many books exist including Author's guide[BryanI988] and The SGML handbook[GoldfarbI990]. A DSSSL document is an SGML document, written with the same rules that guide any SGML document. The structure of a DSSSL document is explained in Chapter 2. DSSSL is based, in part, on scheme, a standard functional programming language. The DSSSL subset of scheme along with the procedures supported by DSSSL are explained in Chapter 3. The DSSSL standard starts with the supposition of a pre-existing SGML document, and offers a series of processes that can be performed on it: ? Groves The first process that is performed on an SGML document in DSSSL is always the analysis of the document and the creation of a grove. The DSSSL standard shares many common characteristics with another standard of the SGML family, HyTime (ISO/IEC 10744). These standards were developed in parallel, and their developers designed a common data model, the grove, that would support the processing needs of each standard.

1: Introduction. 2: The DSSSL Specification. 2.1. Architectural Forms. 2.2. The DSSSL Architectural Form. 2.3. Features. 2.4. Character Repertoires. 2.5. SGML Grove Plan. 2.6. External Specification. 2.7. Stylesheet Partitioning. 3: The Programming Language. 3.1. Introduction. 3.2. Expressions. 3.3. Data Types. 3.4. Repetitive Processing. 3.5. Standard Procedures. 3.6. Core Expression Language. 4: The Process of Grove Construction. 4.1. Introduction. 4.2. Property Sets. 4.3. Intrinsic Data Types. 4.4. Intrinsic Properties. 4.5. Grove Plans. 4.6. The SGML Property Set. 4.7. The Grove. 4.8. Classes of the SGML Propset. 5: The Standard Document Query Language (SDQL). 5.1. Introduction. 5.2. Query Language Datatypes. 5.3. Node Procedures. 5.4. Property Procedures. 5.5. Exercises. 6: The Transformation Process. 6.1. Introduction. 6.2. Processing Model Overview. 6.3. The Transformer. 6.4. The Transformation Language. 6.5. Transformation Expressions. 7: The Style Process. 7.1. Introduction. 7.2. Tutorial of the Style Language. 7.3. Detailed Explanation of the Flow Object Classes. 7.4. Additional Classes. 7.5. Basic Example. 7.6. Catalog of Flow Object Classes. A. Tools Supporting DSSSL. A.1. Description. A.2.OpenJade. Bibliography. Index.