3 <b>An X·S·L·T‐based static site generator.</b>
5 <dfn>⛩️📰 书社</dfn> aims to make it easy to generate websites with
6 X·S·L·T and G·N·U Make.
7 It is consequently only a good choice for people who like X·S·L·T and
8 G·N·U Make and wish it were easier to make websites with them.
10 It makes things easier by :—
12 - Automatically identifying source files and characterizing them by
13 type (X·M·L, text, or asset).
15 - Parsing supported text types into X·M·L trees.
17 - Enabling easy inclusion of source files within each other.
19 It aims to do this with zero dependencies beyond the programs already
20 installed on your computer.
24 <i lang="cmn-Hans">书社</i> is a Chinese word meaning “publishing
27 The first character, <i lang="cmn-Hans">书</i>, is the simplified form
30 The second character, <i lang="cmn-Hans">社</i>, contemporarily means
31 “association”, but historically referred to the god of the soil and
32 related altars or festivities.
33 In Japanese, it is an alternate spelling for <i lang="ja">やしろ</i>,
34 the word for “Shinto shrine”.
36 The name <i lang="cmn-Hans">书社</i> was chosen to play on this pun, as
37 it is intended as a publishing program for webshrines.
39 In Ascii environments, ⛩️📰 书社 should be written `Shushe`, following
40 the pinyin transliteration.
44 Place source files in `sources/` and run `make install` to compile
45 the result to `public/`.
46 Compilation involves the following steps :—
48 1. ⛩️📰 书社 compiles all of the magic files in `magic/` into a single
49 file, `build/magic.mgc`.
51 2. ⛩️📰 书社 processes all of the parsers in `parsers/` and determines
52 the list of supported plaintext types.
54 3. ⛩️📰 书社 identifies all of the source files and includes and uses
55 `build/magic.mgc` to classify them by media type.
57 4. ⛩️📰 书社 parses all plaintext and X·M·L source files and includes
58 and then builds a dependency tree between them.
60 5. ⛩️📰 书社 uses the dependency tree to establish prerequisites for
63 6. ⛩️📰 书社 compiles each output file to `build/public`.
65 7. ⛩️📰 书社 copies the output files to `public`.
67 You can use `make list` to list each identified source file or include
68 alongside its computed type and dependencies.
69 As this is a Make‐based program, steps will only be run if the
70 corresponding buildfile or output file is older than its
75 The ⛩️📰 书社 namespace is `urn:fdc:ladys.computer:20231231:Shu1She4`.
77 This document uses a few namespace prefixes, with the following
80 | Prefix | Expansion |
81 | -------: | :----------------------------------------- |
82 | `html:` | `http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml` |
83 | `xlink:` | `http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink` |
84 | `xslt:` | `http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform` |
85 | `书社:` | `urn:fdc:ladys.computer:20231231:Shu1She4` |
87 ## Setup and Configuration
89 ⛩️📰 书社 depends on the following programs to run.
90 In every case, you may supply your own implementation by overriding the
91 corresponding (allcaps) variable (e·g, set `MKDIR` to supply your own
92 `mkdir` implementation).
101 - `git` (optional; set `GIT=` to disable)
102 - `mkdir` (requires support for `-p`)
104 - `od` (requires support for `-t x1`)
112 - `tr` (requires support for `-d`)
113 - `uuencode` (requires support for `-m` and `-r`)
114 - `xargs` (requires support for `-0`)
115 - `xmlcatalog` (provided by `libxml2`)
116 - `xmllint` (provided by `libxml2`)
117 - `xsltproc` (provided by `libxslt`)
119 The following additional variables can be used to control the behaviour
123 The location of the source files (default: `sources`).
124 Multiple source directories can be provided, so long as the same
125 file subpath doesn’t exist in more than one of them.
128 The location of source includes (default: `sources/includes`).
129 This can be inside of `SRCDIR`, but needn’t be.
130 Multiple include directories can be provided, so long as the same
131 file subpath doesn’t exist in more than one of them.
134 The location of the (temporary) build directory (default: `build`).
135 `make clean` will delete this, and it is recommended that it not be
136 used for programs aside from ⛩️📰 书社.
139 The location of directory to output files to (default: `public`).
140 `make install` will overwrite files in this directory which
141 correspond to those in `SRCDIR`.
142 It *will not* touch other files, including those generated from files
143 in `SRCDIR` which have since been deleted.
145 Files are first compiled to `$(BUILDDIR)/public` before they are
146 copied to `DESTDIR`, so this folder is relatively quick and
147 inexpensive to re·create.
148 It’s reasonable to simply delete it before every `make install` to
149 ensure stale content is removed.
152 The location of the ⛩️📰 书社 `GNUmakefile`.
153 This should be set automatically when calling Make and shouldn’t ever
154 need to be set manually.
155 This variable is used to find the ⛩️📰 书社 `lib/` folder, which is
156 expected to be in the same location.
159 The location of the magic files to use (default: `$(THISDIR)/magic`).
162 Rules to use with `find` when searching for source files.
163 The default ignores files that start with a period or hyphen‐minus
164 and those which contain a hash, buck, percent, asterisk, colon,
165 semi, eroteme, bracket, or pipe.
167 - **`FINDINCLUDERULES`:**
168 Rules to use with `find` when searching for includes (default:
172 A white·space‐separated list of parsers to use (default:
173 `$(THISDIR)/parsers/*.xslt`).
176 A white·space‐separated list of transforms to use (default:
177 `$(THISDIR)/transforms/*.xslt`).
180 A white·space‐separated list of media types to consider X·M·L
181 (default: `application/xml text/xml`).
184 If this variable has a value, every recipe instruction will be
185 printed when it runs (default: empty).
186 This is helpful for debugging, but typically too noisy for general
191 Source files may be placed in `SRCDIR` in any manner; the file
192 structure used there will match the output.
193 The type of source files is *not* determined by file extension, but
194 rather by magic number; this means that files **must** begin with
195 something recognizable.
196 Supported magic numbers include :—
198 - `<?xml` for `application/xml` files
199 - `#!js` for `text/javascript` files
200 - `@charset "` for `text/css` files
201 - `#!tsv` for `text/tab-separated-values` files
202 - `%%` for `text/record-jar` files (unregistered; see
203 [[draft-phillips-record-jar-01][]])
205 Text formats with associated X·S·L·T parsers are wrapped in a H·T·M·L
206 `<script>` element whose `@type` gives its media type, and then
207 passed to the parser to process.
208 Source files whose media type does not have an associated X·S·L·T
209 parser are considered “assets” and will not be transformed.
211 **☡ For compatibility with this program, source file·names must not
212 contain Ascii white·space, colons (`:`), semis (`;`), pipes (`|`),
213 bucks (`$`), percents (`%`), hashes (`#`), asterisks (`*`), brackets
214 (`[` or `]`), erotemes (`?`), or control characters, and must not
215 begin with a hyphen‐minus (`-`).**
216 The former characters have the potential to conflict with make syntax,
217 and a leading hyphen‐minus is confusable for a command‐line argument.
221 Parsers are used to convert plaintext files into X·M·L trees, as well
222 as convert plaintext formats which are already included inline in
223 existing source X·M·L documents.
224 ⛩️📰 书社 comes with some parsers; namely :—
226 - **`parsers/plain.xslt`:**
227 Wraps `text/plain` contents in a `<html:pre class="plain">` element.
229 - **`parsers/record-jar.xslt`:**
230 Converts `text/record-jar` contents into a
231 `<html:div class="record-jar">` of `<html:dl>` elements (one for
234 - **`parsers/tsv.xslt`:**
235 Converts `text/tab-separated-values` contents into an
236 `<html:table class="tsv">` element.
238 New ⛩️📰 书社 parsers which target plaintext formats should have an
239 `<xslt:template>` element with no `@name` or `@mode` and whose
242 - Starts with an appropriately‐namespaced qualified name for a
243 `<html:script>` element.
245 - Follows this with the string `[@type=`.
247 - Follows this with a quoted string giving a media type supported by
249 Media type parameters are *not* supported.
251 - Follows this with the string `]`.
253 For example, the trivial `text/plain` parser is defined as follows :—
256 <?xml version="1.0"?>
258 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
259 xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
260 xmlns:书社="urn:fdc:ladys.computer:20231231:Shu1She4"
263 <书社:id>example:text/plain</书社:id>
264 <template match="html:script[@type='text/plain']">
265 <html:pre><value-of select="."/></html:pre>
270 ⛩️📰 书社 will scan the provided parsers for this pattern to determine
271 the set of allowed plaintext file types.
272 Multiple such `<xslt:template>` elements may be provided in a single
273 parser, for example if the parser supports multiple media types.
274 Alternatively, you can set the `@书社:supported-media-types` attribute
275 on the root element of the parser to override media type support
278 Even when `@书社:supported-media-types` is set, it is a requirement
279 that each parser transform any `<html:script>` elements with a
280 `@type` which matches their registered types into something else.
281 Otherwise the parser will be stuck in an endless loop.
282 The result tree of applying the transform to the `<html:script>`
283 element will be reparsed (in case any new `<html:script>` elements
284 were added in its subtree), and a `@书社:parsed-by` attribute will be
285 added to each toplevel element in the result.
286 The value of this attribute will be the value of the `<书社:id>`
287 toplevel element in the parser.
289 It is possible for parsers to support zero plaintext types.
290 This is useful when targeting specific dialects of X·M·L; parsers in
291 this sense operate on the same basic principles as transforms
293 The major distinction between X·M·L parsers and transforms is where in
294 the process the transformation happens:
295 Parsers are applied *prior* to embedding (and can be used to generate
296 embeds); transforms are applied *after*.
298 It is **strongly recommended** that auxillary templates in parsers be
299 namespaced (by `@name` or `@mode`) whenever possible, to avoid
300 conflicts between parsers.
304 Documents can be embedded in other documents using a `<书社:link>`
305 element with `@xlink:show="embed"`.
306 The `@xlink:href`s of these elements should have the format
307 `about:shushe?source=<path>`, where `<path>` provides the path to the
308 file within `SRCDIR`.
309 Includes, which do not generate outputs of their own but may still be
310 freely embedded, instead use the format
311 `about:shushe?include=<path>`, where `<path>` provides the path
314 Embeds are replaced with the parsed contents of a file, unless the file
315 is an asset, in which case an `<html:object>` element is produced
316 instead (with the contents of the asset file provided as a base64
319 Embedding takes place after parsing but before transformation, so
320 parsers are able to generate their own embeds.
321 ⛩️📰 书社 is able to detect the transitive embed dependencies of files
322 and update them accordingly; it will signal an error if the
323 dependencies are recursive.
325 ## Output Redirection
327 By default, ⛩️📰 书社 installs files to the same location in `DESTDIR`
328 as they were placed in their `SRCDIR`.
329 This behaviour can be customized by setting the `@书社:destination`
330 attribute on the root element, whose value can give a different path.
331 This attribute is read after parsing, but before transformation (where
332 it is silently dropped).
336 Transforms are used to convert X·M·L files into their final output,
337 after all necessary parsing and embedding has taken place.
338 ⛩️📰 书社 comes with some transforms; namely :—
340 - **`transforms/attributes.xslt`:**
341 Applies transforms to the children of any `<书社:apply-attributes>`
342 elements, and then applies the attributes of the
343 `<书社:apply-attributes>` to each result child, replacing the
344 element with the result.
345 This is useful in combination with image embeds to apply alt‐text to
346 the resulting `<html:img>`.
348 - **`transforms/asset.xslt`:**
349 Converts `<html:object>` elements which correspond to recognized
350 media types into the appropriate H·T·M·L elements, and deletes
351 `<html:style>` elements from the body of the document and moves
354 - **`transforms/metadata.xslt`:**
355 Provides basic `<html:head>` metadata.
356 This metadata is generated from `<html:meta>` elements with one of
357 the following `@itemprop` attributes :—
359 - **`urn:fdc:ladys.computer:20231231:Shu1She4:title`:**
360 Provides the title of the page.
362 ⛩️📰 书社 automatically encapsulates embeds so that their metadata
363 does not propogate up to the embedding document.
364 To undo this behaviour, remove the `@itemscope` and `@itemtype`
365 attributes from the embed during the transformation phase.
367 The following are recommendations on effective creation of
370 - Make template matchers as specific as possible.
371 It is likely an error if two transforms have templates which match
372 the same element (unless the templates have different priority).
374 - Namespace templates (with `@name` or `@mode`) whenever possible.
376 - Set `@exclude-result-prefixes` on the root `xslt:transform` element
377 to reduce the number of declared namespaces in the final result.
381 The following params are made available globally in parsers and
388 The tag or hash of the current commit in the working directory (if
389 `GIT` is defined and `./.git` exists).
392 The time at which the source file was last modified.
395 The tag or hash of the current commit in `THISDIR` (if `GIT` is
396 defined and `$(THISDIR)/.git` exists).
398 The following params are only available in transforms :—
401 The path of the catalog file (within `BUILDDIR`).
404 The path of the output file (within `DESTDIR`).
408 ⛩️📰 书社 will wrap the final output of the transforms in appropriate
409 `<html:html>` and `<html:body>` elements, so it is not necessary for
410 transforms to do this explicitly.
411 After performing the initial transform, ⛩️📰 书社 will match the root
412 node of the result in the following modes to fill in areas of the
416 The result of matching in this mode is prepended into the
417 `<html:body>` of the output (before the transformation result).
420 The result of matching in this mode is appended into the
421 `<html:body>` of the output (after the transformation result).
424 The result of matching in this mode is inserted into the
425 `<html:head>` of the output.
427 In addition to being called with the transform result, each of these
428 modes will additionally be called with a `<xslt:include>` element
429 corresponding to each transform.
430 If a transform has a `<书社:id>` top‐level element whose value is an
431 i·r·i, its `<xslt:include>` element will have a corresponding
433 This mechanism can be used to allow transforms to insert content
434 without matching any elements in the result; for example, the
435 following transform adds a link to a stylesheet to the `<html:head>`
439 <?xml version="1.0"?>
441 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
442 xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
443 xmlns:xslt="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
444 xmlns:书社="urn:fdc:ladys.computer:20231231:Shu1She4"
445 exclude-result-prefixes="书社"
448 <书社:id>example:add-stylesheet-links.xslt</书社:id>
449 <template match="xslt:include[@书社:id='example:add-stylesheet-links.xslt']" mode="书社:metadata">
450 <html:link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style.css"/>
455 Output wrapping can be entirely disabled by adding a
456 `@书社:disable-output-wrapping` attribute to the top‐level element in
461 Source files are licensed under the terms of the <cite>Mozilla Public
462 License, version 2.0</cite>.
463 For more information, see [LICENSE](./LICENSE).
465 [draft-phillips-record-jar-01]: <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-phillips-record-jar-01>