<chapter xmlns="http://www.gobosoft.com/eiffel/gobo/documentation" id="xml_catalogs">
<chapterinfo>
	<copyright>
		<year>2005</year>
		<holder>Eric Bezault</holder>
	</copyright>
	<author>
		<firstname>Eric</firstname><surname>Bezault</surname>
	</author>
	<email>ericb@gobosoft.com</email>
	<date>7 July 2005</date>
</chapterinfo>

<title>XML catalogs and the Catalog Resolver</title>

<section id="about_catalogs">
<title>About OASIS ERTC XML Catalogs</title>

<para>
The resolvers mentioned in the previous chapter are take a string from
an xml document, and attempt to open an input stream for the parser or application
to read from. This is all very well, if the string concerned can easily be mapped
to a local resource. 
</para>

<para>
The moment you start to think beyond the local machine, this approach has limitations. 
For instance, if a <exmlsyntax>SYSTEM</exmlsyntax> id refers to a network resource, 
you don't have many options. If you have a local copy of the resource, you could edit
the source document and change the <exmlsyntax>SYSTEM</exmlsyntax> id. But you may
have to do a lot of editing, and if you want to distribute the document, it gets complicated.
Alternatively, you might have a resolver available that handles the http protocol, but
if you lose your network connection, or the remote server goes down, you are in trouble.
</para>

<para>
Using a string-based resolver can releave some of these problems, but having to code, or configure
in code, a dedicated class is not very flexible. A good answer to these problems is the catalog resolver.
</para>

</section>

<section>
<title>The Catalog Resolver</title>

<para>
<classname>XM_CATALOG_RESOLVER</classname> is a resolver that implements a two-stage 
resolution process. In the first stage, it uses XML catalogs (as defined by the
<ulink url="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12075/xml-catalogs.html">
OASIS Entity Resolution Technical Committee's 1.1 specification of 16th March 2005</ulink>) to look up
a <exmlsyntax>SYSTEM</exmlsyntax> or <exmlsyntax>PUBLIC</exmlsyntax> id, or a 
URI reference from the source document, and fetches another URI reference
to feed into the second stage.
</para>

<para>
In the second stage, an <classname>XM_URI_EXTERNAL_RESOLVER</classname> is used to open a stream
to the mapped URI reference.
</para>

<para>
The actual format of an OASIS ERTC XML Catalog is quite complex, and allows delegation and URI re-writing.
Read the specification to understand the full power of these catalogs.
</para>

</section>

<section>
<title>Configuring the Catalog Resolver</title>

<para>
A number of options control the way the ctaalog resolver finds catalogs, and the resolution itself.

<variablelist>
	<varlistentry>
		<term>System catalog list</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>
			The initial list of system catalogs searched by the resolver is taken from
			the environment variable <envar>XML_CATALOG_FILES</envar>, which
			must be a list of file names separated by colons or semi-colons. If this list
			is empty, then the file <filename class="catalog">/etc/xml/catalog</filename>
			is used, unless <featurecall><featurename>suppress_default_system_catalog_file</featurename></featurecall>
			is called on <classname>XM_SHARED_CATALOG_MANAGER</classname>.
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Document control of catalog files</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>
			Additional catalogs are searched for particular documents if one or more
			<exmlsyntax>oasis-xml-catalog</exmlsyntax> processing instructions appear
			within that documents (see <ulink url="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12075/xml-catalogs.html#oasis-er-tc-abc">
			the specification for restrictions</ulink>).
			This behaviour can be suppressed by calling <featurename>suppress_processing_instructions</featurename>.
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Public/System preference</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>
			If the <exmlsyntax>prefer</exmlsyntax> attribute is not coded for a particular catalog,
			then the default is <exmlsyntax>prefer="public"</exmlsyntax>. This can be changed to
			<exmlsyntax>prefer="system"</exmlsyntax> by calling <featurecall><featurename>set_prefer_system</featurename></featurecall>.
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Debugging</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>
			To assist in creating catalogs, or to find possible bugs in the resolver, you can get
			debugging messages written to the standard error stream, by calling
			<featurename>set_debug_level (a_level: INTEGER)</featurename>. Level 0 is the default,
			and level 10 gives the most voluminous ouptut. It is quite a good idea to turn on
			level 1 at least, as it will tell you if there are serious errors in your catalogs.
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</para>

<section>
<title>Debug level settings</title>

<para>
The level parameter controls which classes of debugging messages are generated thus:
</para>

<orderedlist>
	<listitem>
	<para>
		Any errors that cause a catalog to fail parsing.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Near-errors, loading catalogs, or switching to a delegated catalog.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Catalogs that do not exist, traces of calls to resolve routines,
		and setting options on the catalog manager.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Parsing a named catalog, and entries encountered within it.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Resolution results. Setting xml:base. 
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Preference status of found public entries. Duplicates.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Catalog's base URI. Identity of retrieved catalogs, and whether they fail parsing.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Normalization messages. Number of system catalogs.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Checking for delegates, next catalogs and re-write rules. Matches found/not-found.
	</para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	<para>
		Prefix strings. Candidate matches.
	</para>
	</listitem>
</orderedlist>

</section>

</section>

</chapter>
