SGML docs and pdf single-quotes

["E. Rijkers" <er(at)xs4all(dot)nl>]

Hi all,

  Using the pdf version of the postgres manual I wonder if
it wouldn't be better to replace single-quotes inside
<programlisting> with &apos; (apostrophe).

There are two advantages:

  1. it makes it possible to copy-and-paste examples from
the pdf file.

  2. it prevents running together of two (or more)
single-quotes into a single double-quote.

Both problems occur only in pdf, not in html.

A disadvantage is that sgml source files become less
human-readable.

I compiled such a converted pdf with the attached perl
program.

The perl program can easily be made to generate the diffs
for all sgml files;  I'll do that if it is considered
useful. On the other hand, maybe this conversion of  ' to
&apod;  should be built into the xslt processing (to leave
the sgml more readable)?


Erik Rijkers