Example document for SGML processing

Abstract
This document illustrates a simple SGML document type. It should be easy to write processors that can handle this document.

This document as an SGML instance

This is an example of a complete SGML document. In this context complete means that the text file containing the document instance also defines the document type definition for the instance.

More common practice is for the document type definition to reside in a separate text file from the document instance. The file containing the document type definition is referenced through the document type declaration, which is the DOCTYPE container.

Processing generalities

In translating an SGML document many steps are obvious.

In particular, for translation from one document type to another, often many things can be translated element-wise.

Sometimes, however, it is necessary to descend recursively into an element.

An example where recursive descent is needed

For the task of translating this document type to HTML the link element provides an example where element-wise translation will not work.