Dear All,

I'm just getting into XML. I understand that one of the promises of XML is taht one can combine XML with a customised XSL stylesheet and spit out the XML data in just about any other format I choose. Thus if I write a manual (my first toy example) I should be able to write a stylesheet that spits out the manual in conventional html; I can put it into a groffable format so that it can be used as a conventional command line man page; and similarly I should be able to convert it to a plain text file. Well:

- I've found texts that describe how to write XSL stylesheets. It even works when I point a browser at one of my XML files. Wow!

- However I can't find a way of getting hold of the xml file immediately after being processed by the stylesheet. I'd like a command that can take my stylesheet and XML such as "<TOG>CAT MAINTANANCE</TOG><P>Cat source code is freely..." and convert it to e.g. man page fodder of the form: ".SH CAT MAINTENANCE\nCat source...".

Obviously this can be done if I write a program that parses the xml but I was under the impression that the stylesheet could define the mapping so that no further programming was required. Is that not the case?

Regards, Tischbein