instant(user cmd) instant(user cmd)
Name
instant - manipulates ESIS from parsed SGML instance
Synopsis
instant [ -bhuvxHISW ] [ -t file] [ -s file] [ -c file] [ -o file]
[ -D variable=value ...] [ -i id] [ -l directory] [file]
Description
The instant program manipulates an SGML document instance in a variety
of ways, including translating into a form suitable for a formatting
application and printing information about this instance. Input to
instant is the output of sgmls, whose format is called Element Struc‐
ture Information Set (ESIS).
Flags
The following are the possible command line options to instant. Output
is sent to the standard output, except where otherwise noted.
-t file
Translate the SGML instance to another form, usually suitable
for a formatting application. The file is called a translation
spec, which specifies how the tags are to be translated. See
transpec(4). By convention, names for file use the suffix .ts,
for translation spec.
-s file
Specifies a file of mappings for SDATA entities in the instance.
The file is of two columns, separated by one or more tabs. Spa‐
ces can not be used as the separator because spaces are allow‐
able as the content of the columns. The first column is the
entity data to map, the second is the string that the data is
mapped to. The entity data is typically what is found in public
ISO entity sets, such as the General Technical and Publishing
sets. The mappings are specific to the formatting application
used. For example, to map the em dash entity, [mdash ], in the
Publishing set to the TeX representation, the first column would
be [mdash ] and the second column ---. Lines beginning with a #
are comments, and are ignored. Empty lines are also ignored.
-c file
Specifies a file of string mappings for characters in the
instance. The file is of two columns, separated by white space.
The first is the character to map, the second is the string that
the character is mapped to. The mappings are specific to the
formatting application used. Lines beginning with a # are com‐
ments, and are ignored. Empty lines are also ignored.
-d "Data hack" M strip newline at the beginning of data records
-f length
Set the threshold for the length, in characters, of an <Entry>,
over which it is called a block of filled text, to length.
-o file
Write all output (except error and warning messages) to file
file. By default, output goes to stdout.
-h Print a text representation of the hierarchy of the instance
elements. The deeper an element is in the tree, the more it is
indented. The data content is not printed.
-u Print a summary of the usage of each element in the instance.
Information given includes attributes, number of children, and
depth in the hierarchy.
-S Print some statistics about element usage in the instance,
including how often each element is used and how much PCDATA is
contained.
-x Print the context of each element in the instance, from each
element to the root of the document tree.
-v Validate the SGML instance based on the set of constraints or
descriptions in the transpec file. This flags tells instant to
turn off normal output, leaving only diagnostics.
-l directory
Try to read the translation specs or other files from in the
directory directory if not found in the current directory. This
is called the library directory. The environment variable
TPT_LIB may also be used to specify this.
-b Interactive browser mode. The user is prompted for actions,
which include moving among and examining the various nodes in
the hierarchy of the instance, displaying information about
them, etc.
-I List the IDs of all elements in the instance that have an ID.
The format is more suitable for other programs than humans.
Lines show the ID, element GI, filename, and line, separated by
colons. (This depends on the -l option to sgmls which provide
filenames and line numbers.)
-i id When translating the instance, begin processing at the element
whose ID is id instead of the topmost element.
-D variable=value
Define the variable variable with value value.
-W Do not print warning messages.
-H Print a help message briefly describing the options.
file Read the instance from the file file. This is expected to be
the output of the program sgmls. If not specified, instant
reads the instance from its standard input.
In some cases it makes no sense to combine options. This is especially
true if one of the options is to perform a translation. No checking is
done for this.
Interactive Browser
These are the commands to the interactive browser:
cd args ...
Change to a different element in the hierarchy. cd id id will
change to the element whose ID is id. cd N will change to the
Nth child element of the current element. Several values of N
may be specified, so the program will change to successively
descending elements in the hierarchy. The string .. may appear
for N to move up a level in the hierarchy (like in a unix file
system). A / may be specified for N to change to the top of the
hierarchy.
cont Print the context of each element.
data N Show the data content (PCDATA, RCDATA, and DATA) of child node
N.
find spec
Find paths to elements matching spec, where spec may be one of:
parent gi
Find all elements whose parent element is gi.
child gi
Find all elements which have a child element gi.
gi gi Find all elements whose name is gi.
attr name value
Find all elements that have a attribute name that have a
value value.
id ID Show location of element whose ID is ID. If ID is ?, it will
list all IDs with the paths to them.
ls List information about the current element in the hierarchy.
This includes element name, line number in instance, context,
attributes and their values, child elements, data directly
within this element, and the order of the current element among
its siblings.
q relation element
Report whether or not the current element has the relation rela‐
tion to the named element element. Values of relation are the
same as for _followrel in transpec reference page.
stat Show statistics about the hierarchy.
sum Show a tag usage summary about the hierarchy.
tran transpec outfile
Write translated output using trans spec transpec to file out‐
file. If outfile is not specified, output is sent to stdout.
tree Print a textual representation of the hierarchy of the instance,
where deeper elements are indented more.
where Show current position in the hierarchy.
<control-D>
Exits the program.
The stat, sum, tree, cont commands take an optional first argument (of
any value), which means to only consider the entire instance instead of
the hierarchy from the current element.
Files
file.ts
Translation specification file.
file.sdata
SDATA entity mapping file.
file.cmap
Character mapping file.
Related Informationtranspec(4), sgmls(1), Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), ISO
8879.
instant(user cmd)
