I think that thread should get you headed in the right direction.
I still use the method I described in a post on that thread. Some might call it inelegant, but it works for me:-). The only thing that I don't know about is how to integrate it into an Ant script. I'm an old fogey who still uses make for most builds (if it's not broken, don't fix it:-).
Dick Hamilton
-------
XML Press
XML for Technical Communicators
http://xmlpress.net
On Aug 19, 2015, at 6:31, Frank Arensmeier <> wrote:
> Just a quick heads-up. I just stumbled upon an old thread on this list dealing with more or less the same problem as you have.
>
> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.text.docbook.apps/29005
>
> Maybe worth reading?
> /frank
>
>
>> 19 aug 2015 kl. 15:20 skrev Lars Vogel <>:
>>
>> Hi Frank,
>>
>> thanks, xpointers sound very useful.
>>
>> I tried it but my self-written xinclude Apache Ant task does not support xpointers. Is anyone aware of an existing Ant xinclude task which has support for xpointers?
>>
>> Best regards, Lars
>>
>> 2015-08-19 15:04 GMT+02:00 Frank Arensmeier <>:
>> Hi there!
>>
>> There is probably some XLST foo out there that does what you want. I’d like to suggest an other approach. Have a look at "Xpointers" for the x:include element. The attribute "xpointer" on that element defines an xpath expression (kind of) that is used to select only parts of the document you want to include.
>>
>> http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/ModularDoc.html#UsingXinclude
>>
>> See e.g. "Selecting part of a file". However, your tool chain must support xpointers (not sure if xproc has suport for the full power of xpointers).
>>
>> Hope this helps!
>>
>> Regards
>> /frank
>>
>>> 19 aug 2015 kl. 14:21 skrev Lars Vogel <>:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I use xinclude to include certain documents in different books. In a certain context I want to use it as part in another as appendix.
>>>
>>> I tried to remove the top level node with the following to my customization layer:
>>>
>>> <!-- Remove all sections marked with wrapper -->
>>> <xsl:template match="part[@role='wrapper']" mode="profile">
>>> <xsl:apply-templates select="part" mode="profile" />
>>> </xsl:template>
>>>
>>> And include it into the books like this:
>>>
>>> <part>
>>> <title>Gerrit code reviews with Eclipse</title>
>>> <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="820_gerrit.xml" />
>>> </part>
>>>
>>> or
>>>
>>> <appendix>
>>> <title>Gerrit code reviews with Eclipse</title>
>>> <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="820_gerrit.xml" />
>>> </appendix>
>>>
>>> Unfortunately my customization removes not only the top level part element but the whole part.
>>>
>>> Is anyone aware of a nice trick to replace part in some books with appendix?
>>>
>>> Best regards, Lars
>>>
>>> P.S. What I would like to have is the equivalent of the <merge> node for defining Android layouts, this node is only their to have a valid XML file, but is removed during the include process.
>>
>>
>
