Transform a DocBook file into EPUB using Saxon 9

Question

Background

Looking to generate an EPUB using Saxon 9 instead of xsltproc with Java 1.7. The setup looks as follows:

• DocBook XSL is installed into $HOME/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/.
• The saxon9he.jar archive is in the current working directory.
• The file _ant4dbk_book.xml.jdom contains a valid DocBook file.

The EPUB contents can be created using the following command:

xsltproc --output ./epub/ $HOME/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/epub3/chunk.xsl \
  _ant4dbk_book.xml.jdom

Problem

The following command fails:

java -jar saxon9he.jar -xsl:$HOME/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/epub3/chunk.xsl \
  _ant4dbk_book.xml.jdom

Error Message

Running Saxon fails with the following message:

Warning: at xsl:stylesheet on line 7 column 17 of chunk.xsl:
  Running an XSLT 1 stylesheet with an XSLT 2 processor
Don't know how to chunk with Saxonica
Error at xsl:message on line 54 of chunker.xsl:
  XTMM9000: Processing terminated by xsl:message at line 54 in chunker.xsl
  at xsl:call-template name="make-relative-filename" (file:/home/username/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/xhtml/chunk-common.xsl#341)
  at xsl:call-template name="make.lots" (file:/home/username/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/xhtml/division.xsl#84)
  at xsl:call-template name="process-chunk-element" (file:/home/username/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/xhtml/chunk-code.xsl#522)
  at xsl:apply-templates (file:/home/username/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/epub3/epub3-chunk-mods.xsl#32)
     processing /book
  in built-in template rule
  at xsl:apply-templates (file:/home/username/docbook-xsl-1.78.1/xhtml/chunk-code.xsl#493)
     processing /
Processing terminated by xsl:message at line 54 in chunker.xsl

Since xsltproc is an XSLT 1.0 processor, I was under the impression Saxon 9 would work, as the documentation states:

However, even if your stylesheets only require XSLT 1.0, it is probably better to run them under Saxon 9.x

Question

Is it possible to use Saxon 9 to generate an EPUB file set using DocBook XSL 1.78.1, and if so, how?

Related

• https://wikis.forgerock.org/confluence/display/devcom/How+to+DocBook
• http://xml.web.cern.ch/XML/www.sagehill.net/xml/docbookxsl/ToolsSetup.html

Answer 1

The DocBook stylesheets are written to use various extensions available in various specific XSLT 1.0 processors for producing multiple output files. Unfortunately they are not written to use the standard XSLT 2.0 xsl:result-document instruction.