RPMs for Xerces-C and Xalan-C and misc notes...

[Murray Todd Williams <mu...@verinet.com>]

Since I've been building (Linux) RPM packages for all the XML Apache
*Java* projects, I figured I'd round everything out and start putting
together packages for Xerces-C and Xalan-C.  I've been more productive
than usual today and actually got a first draft of both packages done.
If anyone would like them and *especially* if anyone would like to look
them over and give feedback.  I have to confess I haven't had time to
try out any tests yet.  I gotta pull out my Java brain and see where I
put my C++ brain instead.

I've got a couple notes/questions.

1: Using the CVSWeb interface, I couldn't seem to find any documentation
(especially the wonderful doxygen-generated API docs) to put in the
Xalan-C package.  I only had the "Linux .tar.gz" file from the
xml.apache.org site to work from.  Am I being a goof and missing
something obvious?

2: I didn't want to require the Xerces-C package leave it's entire build
directory tree sitting around (.o files and everything) with includes
and .cpp files and the library sitting under one directory (not my idea
of the "Unix way of doing things") so I put all the subdirectories with
all the .hpp files under /usr/include/xerces-c and the .so  library
under /usr/lib.

This caused a bit of a difficulty when working with the Xalan-C
configure/Makefile files.  I ended up patching two lines in the Makefile
(after configure runs) so that I could specify the Xerces-C header root
with one variable and the Xerces-C library path with another.   This
modification seemed to work just fine.  However, this being an RPM
install package for Xalan-C, which might (hopefully) find its way onto
many people's desktops, I want to make sure these tweaks are not
offensively contrary to the Way Things Should Be.

3: I don't know that much about gcc/egcs and the various flavors of C++,
but Xalan-C will compile on Linux (RedHat) i386 but not on Linux
(YelowDog) PowerPC.  There's an error/warning that was showing up plenty
under the RedHat, but GCC just kept powering through anyway.  On the
PowerPC side GCC decides instead to halt and not generate the .o file.
One example (the first halting occurance on the PowerPC build) is this:

c++ -g -O2 -fpic -instances=static -DLINUX -D_REENTRANT -c  -I . -I
/usr/include/xerces-c  -o /usr/src/rpm/BUILD/xml-xalan/obj/DOMServices.o
DOMSupport/DOMServices.cpp
In file included from DOMSupport/DOMServices.cpp:74:
PlatformSupport/DOMStringHelper.hpp: In function `class DOMString
substring(const DOMString &, unsigned int, unsigned int = 0ffffffff)':
PlatformSupport/DOMStringHelper.hpp:520: name lookup of `u' changed for
new ANSI `for' scoping
PlatformSupport/DOMStringHelper.hpp:518:   using obsolete binding at `u'

Does anyone know what this means, or (if it doesn't really matter) what
parameter could be given to egcs to ignore and move on?

Anyway, you can find the RPMs at http://grapeape.codingapes.com/xml.xml
and I'm happy to make available i386 and PowerPC packages.  (If anyone
has an alpha or sparc or ia64--in my dreams!--and rebuilds RPMs, I'd
love to work with you to offer more platforms!)

FINALLY.... I've got two more questions which I posted here before, but
never heard anything from anyone....

4: Does anyone have a picture or drawing of a Xalan (The Rare Musical
Instrument)?  I'm trying to incorporate some graphics into my web site
and would like to have something Xalan-oriented about Xalan.

5: Does Xalan-J (yes, the Java version) still have incompatibilities
with Xerces-J versions > 1.0.3??

Cheers,

Murray Todd Williams