# Common » Refentry Metadata Template Reference

$Id: refentry.xsl 7056 2007-07-17 13:56:09Z xmldoc $

## Introduction

This is technical reference documentation for the “refentry metadata” templates in the DocBook XSL Stylesheets.

This is not intended to be user documentation. It is provided for developers writing customization layers for the stylesheets.

Currently, only the manpages stylesheets make use of these templates. They are, however, potentially useful elsewhere.

get.refentry.metadata Gathers metadata from a refentry and its ancestors

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.metadata">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="info"/>
    <xsl:param name="prefs"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

Reference documentation for particular commands, functions, etc., is sometimes viewed in isolation from its greater "context". For example, users view Unix man pages as, well, individual pages, not as part of a "book" of some kind. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary to embed "context" information in output for each refentry.

However, one problem is that different users mark up that context information in different ways. Often (usually), the context information is not actually part of the content of the refentry itself, but instead part of the content of a parent or ancestor element to the the refentry. And even then, DocBook provides a variety of elements that users might potentially use to mark up the same kind of information. One user might use the productnumber element to mark up version information about a particular product, while another might use the releaseinfo element.

Taking all that in mind, the `get.refentry.metadata` template tries to gather metadata from a refentry element and its ancestor elements in an intelligent and user-configurable way. The basic mechanism used in the XPath expressions throughout this stylesheet is to select the relevant metadata from the *info element that is closest to the actual refentry – either on the refentry itself, or on its nearest ancestor.

The `get.refentry.metadata` template is actually just sort of a "driver" template; it calls other templates that do the actual data collection, then returns the data as a set.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

info

  A set of info nodes (from a refentry element and its ancestors)

prefs

  A node containing user preferences (from global stylesheet parameters)

### Returns

Returns a node set with the following elements. The descriptions are verbatim from the `man(7)` man page.

title

  the title of the man page (e.g., `MAN`)

section

  the section number the man page should be placed in (e.g., `7`)

date

  the date of the last revision

source

  the source of the command

manual

  the title of the manual (e.g., Linux Programmer's Manual)

get.refentry.title Gets title metadata for a refentry

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.title">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

The `man(7)` man page describes this as "the title of the man page (e.g., `MAN`). This differs from refname in that, if the refentry has a refentrytitle, we use that as the title; otherwise, we just use first refname in the first refnamediv in the source.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

### Returns

Returns a title node.

get.refentry.section Gets section metadata for a refentry

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.section">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="quiet" select="0"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

The `man(7)` man page describes this as "the section number the man page should be placed in (e.g., `7`)". If we do not find a manvolnum specified in the source, and we find that the refentry is for a function, we use the section number `3` ["Library calls (functions within program libraries)"]; otherwise, we default to using `1` ["Executable programs or shell commands"].

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

quiet

  If non-zero, no "missing" message is emitted

### Returns

Returns a string representing a section number.

get.refentry.date Gets date metadata for a refentry

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.date">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="info"/>
    <xsl:param name="prefs"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

The `man(7)` man page describes this as "the date of the last revision". If we cannot find a date in the source, we generate one.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

info

  A set of info nodes (from a refentry element and its ancestors)

prefs

  A node containing users preferences (from global stylesheet parameters)

### Returns

Returns a date node.

get.refentry.source Gets source metadata for a refentry

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.source">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="info"/>
    <xsl:param name="prefs"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

The `man(7)` man page describes this as "the source of the command", and provides the following examples:

- For binaries, use something like: GNU, NET-2, SLS Distribution, MCC Distribution.

- For system calls, use the version of the kernel that you are currently looking at: Linux 0.99.11.

- For library calls, use the source of the function: GNU, BSD 4.3, Linux DLL 4.4.1.

The `solbook(5)` man page describes something very much like what `man(7)` calls "source", except that `solbook(5)` names it "software" and describes it like this:

> This is the name of the software product that the topic discussed on the reference page belongs to. For example UNIX commands are part of the `SunOS x.x` release.

In practice, there are many pages that simply have a version number in the "source" field. So, it looks like what we have is a two-part field, Name Version, where:

Name

  product name (e.g., BSD) or org. name (e.g., GNU)

Version

  version name

Each part is optional. If the Name is a product name, then the Version is probably the version of the product. Or there may be no Name, in which case, if there is a Version, it is probably the version of the item itself, not the product it is part of. Or, if the Name is an organization name, then there probably will be no Version.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

info

  A set of info nodes (from a refentry element and its ancestors)

prefs

  A node containing users preferences (from global stylesheet parameters)

### Returns

Returns a source node.

get.refentry.source.name Gets source-name metadata for a refentry

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.source.name">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="info"/>
    <xsl:param name="prefs"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

A "source name" is one part of a (potentially) two-part Name Version source field. For more details, see the documentation for the `get.refentry.source` template.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

info

  A set of info nodes (from a refentry element and its ancestors)

prefs

  A node containing users preferences (from global stylesheet parameters)

### Returns

Depending on what output method is used for the current stylesheet, either returns a text node or possibly an element node, containing "source name" data.

get.refentry.version Gets version metadata for a refentry

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.version">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="info"/>
    <xsl:param name="prefs"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

A "version" is one part of a (potentially) two-part Name Version source field. For more details, see the documentation for the `get.refentry.source` template.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

info

  A set of info nodes (from a refentry element and its ancestors)

prefs

  A node containing users preferences (from global stylesheet parameters)

### Returns

Depending on what output method is used for the current stylesheet, either returns a text node or possibly an element node, containing "version" data.

get.refentry.manual Gets source metadata for a refentry

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.manual">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="info"/>
    <xsl:param name="prefs"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

The `man(7)` man page describes this as "the title of the manual (e.g., Linux Programmer's Manual)". Here are some examples from existing man pages:

- dpkg utilities (`dpkg-name`)

- User Contributed Perl Documentation (`GET`)

- GNU Development Tools (`ld`)

- Emperor Norton Utilities (`ddate`)

- Debian GNU/Linux manual (`faked`)

- GIMP Manual Pages (`gimp`)

- KDOC Documentation System (`qt2kdoc`)

The `solbook(5)` man page describes something very much like what `man(7)` calls "manual", except that `solbook(5)` names it "sectdesc" and describes it like this:

> This is the section title of the reference page; for example `User Commands`.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

info

  A set of info nodes (from a refentry element and its ancestors)

prefs

  A node containing users preferences (from global stylesheet parameters)

### Returns

Returns a manual node.

get.refentry.metadata.prefs Gets user preferences for refentry metadata gathering

    <xsl:template name="get.refentry.metadata.prefs"/>

###

The DocBook XSL stylesheets include several user-configurable global stylesheet parameters for controlling refentry metadata gathering. Those parameters are not read directly by the other refentry metadata-gathering templates. Instead, they are read only by the `get.refentry.metadata.prefs` template, which assembles them into a structure that is then passed to the other refentry metadata-gathering templates.

So the, `get.refentry.metadata.prefs` template is the only interface to collecting stylesheet parameters for controlling refentry metadata gathering.

### Parameters

There are no local parameters for this template; however, it does rely on a number of global parameters.

### Returns

Returns a manual node.

set.refentry.metadata Sets content of a refentry metadata item

    <xsl:template name="set.refentry.metadata">
    <xsl:param name="refname"/>
    <xsl:param name="info"/>
    <xsl:param name="contents"/>
    <xsl:param name="context"/>
    <xsl:param name="preferred"/>
      ...
    </xsl:template>

###

The `set.refentry.metadata` template is called each time a suitable source element is found for a certain metadata field.

### Parameters

refname

  The first refname in the refentry

info

  A single *info node that contains the selected source element.

contents

  A node containing the selected source element.

context

  A string describing the metadata context in which the `set.refentry.metadata` template was called: either "date", "source", "version", or "manual".

### Returns

Returns formatted contents of a selected source element.