DSSSL Syntax Summary Index

Objective

The standard ISO/IEC 10179:1996 Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL) has few navigational aids to help study it. This document suite should simplify that process for the DSSSL production syntax.

The primary document is the DSSSL Syntax Summary. Each DSSSL production names and defines a syntactic variable. Each definition is in terms of other syntactic variables and other kinds of tokens. The syntactic variables are hyperlinked several ways: to the production(s) where each syntactic variable used in the definition is defined, and to where the defined syntactic variable is used in the definitions of other syntactic variables.

Other documents provide additional information for each kind of token used in those productions.

Reference

ISO/IEC 10179:1996
Information technology -- Text and office systems --
Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL),
dated April 1, 1996, © 1996 ISO/IEC

Document Summaries

Production Syntax

The distinctive style used with each document below indicates how that kind of token appears in the syntax summary.

DSSSL Syntax Summary: introductory material and significant clauses with contained productions, each with syntactic variable name, definitions, and list of other productions where used
Contents: of all clauses from the standard, with hyperlinks to the corresponding clauses in the syntax summary that contain productions, indicated by production number range following each such clause.
DSSSL Terminal Variables: such as separator-character, are in sorted order, with hyperlinks to productions in which they are used.
DSSSL Terminal Constants: such as SPACE, are in sorted order, with hyperlinks to productions in which they are used.
DSSSL Syntactic Constants: such as "(", """, or "!key(", are in sorted order, with hyperlinks to productions in which they are used.
DSSSL Syntactic Variables: such as expression, are in sorted order, with hyperlinks to productions where they are defined
DSSSL Syntactic Variables Redefined: in core DSSSL some productions have the same name as in full DSSSL, contrast those with different definitions
DSSSL Syntactic Variables Unused: represent fundamental concepts, and do not appear in definitions in any production.

DSSSL Style Characteristics

Flow Object Characteristics: are the means to associate style information with flow objects.
Characteristic Use in Flow Objects: shows all characteristics sorted. After each characteristic is the list of flow objects where it is used.

DSSSL Prototype Procedures

DSSSL Prototype Procedure Index: shows in sorted order the prototype procedures, and the sub-clauses where they are described.
DSSSL Prototype Procedure Summary: shows all the prototype procedures and the clause lineage to the sub-clause containing them. Also, near the end is a list of the variable names used in the prototypes.

DSSSL Standard Source

The printed DSSSL standard is available from your national standards body. In the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) may be reached at 1-212-642-4900.

Information about electronic sources for DSSSL information is available at
http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/wg8home.htm.
An HTML version of the final committee draft may still be available at
http://occam.sjf.novell.com:8080/dsssl/DSSSL96/1.toc
That draft is for the purpose of understanding DSSSL. It is not the official standard, as a few repairs to the printer's proofs have occurred since then.

Credits

This document augments and reorganizes information extracted from the DSSSL standard, Sharon Adler, Editor. Contributors to this standard since the start of the DSSSL Draft International Standard 2 include: David Abrahamson, Jun Adachi, Paula Angerstein, Dennis Arnon, Anders Berglund, Harvey Bingham, Jon Bosak, Martin Bryan, James Clark, Charles Goldfarb, Paul Grosso, James Mason, Jim Peterson, and Wayne Wohler.

Related Information

See the related SGML Syntax Summary by Harvey Bingham for similar information on ISO 8879:1986 SGML.

See download sources for how to obtain each of these suites packed into single files for your local use.

Original converted to HTML 14 April 1996, Jonathan Mark Bates birthdate.

Version 1.6 25 Jun 1996 add style characteristic and prototype procedure files.
1.6.1 13 Jul 1996 fixed serious typo ISO 10279 one place changed to ISO 10179

Version 2.1 2002-10-24 Changed ISP from rcn to hbingham.com.

This set of files is available in a pkzip file:

http://www.hbingham.com/technical/dsssl/DSSSLSYN.ZIPhttp://www.hbingham.com/technical/dsssl/DSSSLSYN.ZIP

Harvey Bingham's home page
email hbingham@ACM.org

Copyright restrictions:
This material may be used freely for the purposes of studying DSSSL and promoting its application. This copyright notice shall be included in any subsequent copies. The author reserves the right to update this material and to determine the primary server on which it is available.