Preprocessing docbook or markdown with freemarker task

Posted on One min read

Description

Ant4docbook preprocess docbook files as freemarker templates, to add variables and conditions if needed.

Preprocessing parameters

Attribute Description Value Required
file docbook file yes
tofile output file <file name>.pdf yes
preprocessor true false
Attribute Description Value Required
parameter freemarker parameters /!\ DO NOT USE DOT [.] IN VARIABLE NAMES no

Use case

DocBook file with freemarker instructions:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <article xml:lang="en">
  <title>$ {custom_title}</title>
  <section id="section1">
    <title>Section level 1</title>
    <para>
    write your documentation with some conditions
    [#if (output_format_is_pdf)??]
    <xref linkend="appendix-xxx" />
    [#else]
    <ulink url="appendix-xxx.html">appendix-xxx</ulink>
    [/#if]
    </para>
  </section>
</article>

Ant script with freemarker parameters:

<project name="ant-project" default="docbbook-preprocessing">
  
  <target name="docbbook-preprocessing">
    <!-- define <dbk> ant task here, with preprocessor parameter set to true -->
    <dbk file="docbook.xml" tofile="file.html" preprocessor="true">
      <parameter name="custom_title" value="My Custom Title" />
    </dbk>
    <dbk file="docbook.xml" tofile="file.pdf" preprocessor="true">
      <parameter name="custom_title" value="My Custom Title" />
      <parameter name="output_format_is_pdf" value="true" />
    </dbk>
  </target>

</project>