Re: XML output and &latex; entity undefined

[Gavin Smith]

On 6 February 2016 at 01:30, Per Bothner <address@hidden> wrote:
> What is the use case for --xml format?  I'd drop it in favor of --xhtml,
> where --xhtml is the same as --html except strictly XML compatible - with
> no required DTDs or entity definitions.

I wondered the same myself; here is a response from Patrice Dumas:

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> I'd suggest not adding data to the output formats unless there is a
> real use for it. Otherwise it is a burden on the other code in
> texi2any/makeinfo to pass along the information required to output
> this information. I don't know what the "number" attribute is used for
> in the XML output, but I don't know what the XML output as a whole is
> used for anyway.

It is used to provide with an equivalent representation of the .texi,
although with user @-macro and @value and similar expanded.  It was used
previously to convert to other formats (there was aa converter to LaTeX
based on the TexinfoXML output in the past).  The SXML output is based
on the same code, so embeds the same information.
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http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-texinfo/2015-03/msg00002.html

The converter mentioned here is texi2latex.