diff --git a/doc/manual/default.nix b/doc/manual/default.nix
index 1e9581e8dd45..f0e6b64103c2 100644
--- a/doc/manual/default.nix
+++ b/doc/manual/default.nix
@@ -11,30 +11,13 @@ let
     options //
     { system = removeAttrs options.system ["path"]; };
 
-  optionsXML_ = builtins.toFile "options.xml" (builtins.unsafeDiscardStringContext
+  optionsXML = builtins.toFile "options.xml" (builtins.unsafeDiscardStringContext
     (builtins.toXML (pkgs.lib.optionAttrSetToDocList "" options_)));
 
-  optionsXML = pkgs.runCommand "options2.xml" {} ''
-    sed '
-      \,<attr name="\(declarations\|definitions\)">, {
-        n # fetch the next line
-        : rewriteLinks
-        n # fetch the next line
-        \,</list>, b # leave if this is the end of the list
-        ${if revision == "local" then "" else ''
-        # redirect nixos internals to the repository
-        s,<string value="[^"]*/modules/\([^"]*\)" />,<string value="!https://svn.nixos.org/viewvc/nix/nixos/trunk/modules/\1?revision=${revision}!!../nixos/modules/\1!" />, #"
-        t rewriteLinks # jump to rewriteLinks if done
-        ''}
-        # redirect local file to their locations
-        s,<string value="\([^"]*\)" />,<string value="!file://\1\!!../nixos/modules/\1!" />, #"
-        b rewriteLinks # jump to rewriteLinks
-      }
-    ' ${optionsXML_} > $out
-  '';
-
   optionsDocBook = pkgs.runCommand "options-db.xml" {} ''
-    ${pkgs.libxslt}/bin/xsltproc -o $out ${./options-to-docbook.xsl} ${optionsXML_}
+    ${pkgs.libxslt}/bin/xsltproc \
+      --stringparam revision '${revision}' \
+      -o $out ${./options-to-docbook.xsl} ${optionsXML}
   '';
 
   manual = pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
diff --git a/doc/manual/options-to-docbook.xsl b/doc/manual/options-to-docbook.xsl
index d8cd057ac295..68c3590d45d1 100644
--- a/doc/manual/options-to-docbook.xsl
+++ b/doc/manual/options-to-docbook.xsl
@@ -10,6 +10,8 @@
 
   <xsl:output method='xml' encoding="UTF-8" />
 
+  <xsl:param name="revision" />
+
   
   <xsl:template match="/expr/list">
 
@@ -140,7 +142,20 @@
   <xsl:template match="attr[@name = 'declarations' or @name = 'definitions']">
     <simplelist>
       <xsl:for-each select="list/string">
-        <member><filename xlink:href="http://example.org"><xsl:value-of select="@value" /></filename></member>
+        <member><filename>
+          <!-- Hyperlink the filename either to the NixOS Subversion
+          repository (if it’s a module and we have a revision number),
+          or to the local filesystem. -->
+          <xsl:choose>
+            <xsl:when test="$revision != 'local' and contains(@value, '/modules/')">
+              <xsl:attribute name="xlink:href">https://svn.nixos.org/viewvc/nix/nixos/trunk/modules/<xsl:value-of select="substring-after(@value, '/modules/')"/>?revision=<xsl:value-of select="$revision"/></xsl:attribute>
+            </xsl:when>
+            <xsl:otherwise>
+              <xsl:attribute name="xlink:href">file://<xsl:value-of select="@value"/></xsl:attribute>
+            </xsl:otherwise>
+          </xsl:choose>
+          <xsl:value-of select="@value" />
+        </filename></member>
       </xsl:for-each>
     </simplelist>
   </xsl:template>