The DocBook EBNF Document Type

Working Draft 1.2CR1, 27 Jul 2004

Document identifier:

wd-docbook-ebnf-1.2CR1 (XML, HTML, PDF)

Location:

http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/specs

Editor:

Norman Walsh, Sun Microsystems, Inc. 

Abstract:

DocBook EBNF Document Type is a modular superset of DocBook XML V4.3. It is a DocBook extension to support Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) productions.

Status:

This is a working draft constructed by the editor. It is not an official committee work product and may not reflect the consensus opinion of the committee.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Terminology
3. The DocBook EBNF Document Type V1.2CR1
3.1. Usage
4. Changes in DocBook EBNF V1.2CR1
5. Release Notes

Appendixes

A. OASIS DocBook Technical Committee (Non-Normative)
B. Notices
C. Intellectual Property Rights
D. Revision History
References

1. Introduction

DocBook is general purpose document type particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software (though it is by no means limited to these applications).

DocBook EBNF is an extension to provide support for Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) productions.

The DocBook Technical Committee maintains the DocBook EBNF schema. DocBook EBNF is officially available as an [XML] Document Type Definition (DTD).

The Version 1.2 release is based on [DocBook V4.3].

The DocBook Technical Committee welcomes bug reports and requests for enhancement (RFEs) from the user community. The current list of outstanding requests is available through the SourceForge tracker interface. This is also the preferred mechanism for submitting new requests. Old RFEs, from a previous legacy tracking system, are archived for reference.

2. Terminology

The key words must, must not, required, shall, shall not, should, should not, recommended, may, and optional in this Working Draft are to be interpreted as described in [RFC 2119]. Note that for reasons of style, these words are not capitalized in this document.

3. The DocBook EBNF Document Type V1.2CR1

The DocBook EBNF Document Type is a superset of [DocBook V4.3]. It is distributed from the DocBook site at OASIS. It is also available from the mirror on http://docbook.org/.

3.1. Usage

To use this module, specify the public and system identifiers of this module in your document type declaration. For example, to use this module to write a book, use the following document type declaration:

<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook EBNF Module V1.2CR1//EN"
               "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/ebnf/1.2CR1/dbebnf.dtd">

Naturally, you can include an internal subset if you wish.

To incorporate this module into a higher-level customization layer, use the public and system identifiers of this module in your customization layer. For example:

<!DOCTYPE % docbookebnf PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook EBNF Module V1.2CR1//EN"
                        "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/ebnf/1.2CR1/dbebnf.dtd">
%docbookebnf;

4. Changes in DocBook EBNF V1.2CR1

This release updates DocBook EBNF to be a customization of DocBook XML V4.3.

There are no substantive changes to the EBNF-specific markup.

5. Release Notes

None.

A. OASIS DocBook Technical Committee (Non-Normative)

The following individuals were members of the committee during the formulation of this Working Draft:

  • Steve Cogorno

  • Adam Di Carlo

  • Paul Grosso

  • Dick Hamilton

  • Nancy Harrison

  • Scott Hudson

  • Mark Johnson

  • Jirka Kosek

  • Larry Rowland

  • Michael Smith

  • Robert Stayton, Secretary

  • Norman Walsh, Chair, Editor

B. Notices

Copyright © The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards [OASIS] 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004. All Rights Reserved.

OASIS takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on OASIS's procedures with respect to rights in OASIS specifications can be found at the OASIS website. Copies of claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification, can be obtained from the OASIS Executive Director.

OASIS invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights which may cover technology that may be required to implement this specification. Please address the information to the OASIS Executive Director.

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to OASIS, except as needed for the purpose of developing OASIS specifications, in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights document must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English.

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by OASIS or its successors or assigns.

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and OASIS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

OASIS has been notified of intellectual property rights claimed in regard to some or all of the contents of this specification. For more information consult the online list of claimed rights.

C. Intellectual Property Rights

For information on wether any patents have been disclosed that may be essential to implementing this specification, and any offers of patent licensing terms, please refer to the Intellectual Property Rights section of the DocBook web page (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/docbook/)

D. Revision History

Revision 1.2CR1 27 Jul 2004
Revision 1.1-CR1 12 Sep 2002

References

Normative

[XML] Tim Bray, Jean Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, et. al., editors. Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Third Edition). World Wide Web Consortium, 04 Feb 2004.

[RFC 2119] IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). RFC 2119: Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. S. Bradner. 1997.

[DocBook V4.3] Norman Walsh, editor. The DocBook Document Type: Version 4.3. OASIS, 2004.

Non-Normative

[EBNF] ISO/IEC 14977:1996, Information Technology -- Syntactic Metalanguage -- Extended BNF, ISO/IEC, 1996.

[RFC 2234] IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). RFC 2234: Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF. D. Crocker and P. Overell. 1997.