This fix is in Fedora 13 (xmlto-0.0.23-3.fc13), but not in RHEL6 (xmlto-0.0.23-2.el6). So we don't have the SystemTap Tapset Reference Manual PDF.

Currently systemtap configure.ac explicitly disables pdf creation because of this, if this bug is fixed the workaround can be removed:

 dnl Unfortunately https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=526273 
 dnl blocks "xmlto pdf" on our docs (but not on the above test).
 dnl So we need to disable this anyway.
 dnl AM_CONDITIONAL([BUILD_PDFREFDOCS], [test "$have_xmlto_pdf" == "yes"])
 AM_CONDITIONAL([BUILD_PDFREFDOCS], [test "maybe later" == "yes"])

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #526273 +++

Created an attachment (id=363035)
xml input

Run upon attached .xml file (generated during systemtap builds),
plain "xmlto pdf" fails, but gives no useful diagnostics about
how to correct the problem.

xmlto-xhtml-0.0.22-1.fc11.x86_64
xmlto-tex-0.0.22-1.fc11.x86_64
xmlto-0.0.22-1.fc11.x86_64


! Illegal unit of measure (replaced by filll).
<argument> <5:block     ><5:block       >L
                                ogging Tapset</5:block></5:block>\@empty 
l.3398 .../fo:block><fo:block break-before="page">
                                                  <fo:block id="API-warn"><f...

? 
! Emergency stop.
<argument> <5:block     ><5:block       >L
                                ogging Tapset</5:block></5:block>\@empty 
l.3398 .../fo:block><fo:block break-before="page">
                                                  <fo:block id="API-warn"><f...

!  ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
Transcript written on tmp.log.

--- Additional comment from ovasik on 2009-09-29 13:49:18 EDT ---

Thanks for report, will check it. Likely passivetex issue, will check what could be done with this. It's great that at least dblatex backend is able to process it, passivetex is very old and has many limitations.

--- Additional comment from ovasik on 2009-09-29 16:42:53 EDT ---

Yep, likely something fragile in passivetex. When I removed(in fact just commented out) full chapter "logging.stp" , pdf built just fine even with passivetex. I'll check what's wrong/different with that section.

--- Additional comment from ovasik on 2009-10-01 04:55:30 EDT ---

Generating pdf with fop and dblatex is ok, fo is generated properly, no memory/stack/level limit within tetex basic configuration is reached. Something is wrong with that one chapter, generating pdf failed there even if I moved that chapter "logging.stp" up (to aproximately half of the tapsets.xml). Reassigning to passivetex (which is still my package, so it doesn't matter). I'll try to check tex output and compare what's wrong with tex code of that chapter.

--- Additional comment from ovasik on 2009-10-13 08:30:23 EDT ---

Fine, could be workarounded by xmlto, so fixed there (as I don't want to waste time with analyzing passivetex sty file). It seems that passivetex can't handle chapter titles starting with L if they have refentry(s) inside. Patching pdf/dvi/ps format script to enter newlines after "block>" entries seems to solve (workaround) the issue. Fixed in xmlto-0.0.23-3.fc13, closing RAWHIDE.