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XMLWF(1)                                                                                                     XMLWF(1)



NAME
       xmlwf - Determines if an XML document is well-formed

SYNOPSIS
       xmlwf  [  -s]  [ -n]  [ -p]  [ -x]  [ -e encoding]  [ -w]  [ -d output-dir]  [ -c]  [ -m]  [ -r]  [ -t]  [ -v]
       [ file ...]


DESCRIPTION
       xmlwf uses the Expat library to determine if an XML document is well-formed.  It is non-validating.

       If you do not specify any files on the command-line, and you have a recent version of xmlwf,  the  input  file
       will be read from standard input.

WELL-FORMED DOCUMENTS
       A well-formed document must adhere to the following rules:

       · The file begins with an XML declaration.  For instance, <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>.  NOTE: xmlwf
         does not currently check for a valid XML declaration.

       · Every start tag is either empty (<tag/>) or has a corresponding end tag.

       · There is exactly one root element.  This element must contain all other elements in the document.  Only com‐
         ments, white space, and processing instructions may come after the close of the root element.

       · All elements nest properly.

       · All attribute values are enclosed in quotes (either single or double).

       If the document has a DTD, and it strictly complies with that DTD, then the document is also considered valid.
       xmlwf is a non-validating parser -- it does not check the DTD.  However, it  does  support  external  entities
       (see the -x option).

OPTIONS
       When  an option includes an argument, you may specify the argument either separately ("-d output") or concate‐
       nated with the option ("-doutput").  xmlwf supports both.

       -c     If the input file is well-formed and xmlwf doesn't encounter any  errors,  the  input  file  is  simply
              copied to the output directory unchanged.  This implies no namespaces (turns off -n) and requires -d to
              specify an output file.

       -d output-dir
              Specifies a directory to contain transformed representations of the input files.  By default,  -d  out‐
              puts  a  canonical  representation (described below).  You can select different output formats using -c
              and -m.

              The output filenames will be exactly the same as the input filenames or "STDIN" if the input is  coming
              from  standard  input.   Therefore,  you must be careful that the output file does not go into the same
              directory as the input file.  Otherwise, xmlwf will delete the input file before it generates the  out‐
              put file (just like running cat < file > file in most shells).

              Two  structurally equivalent XML documents have a byte-for-byte identical canonical XML representation.
              Note that ignorable white space is considered significant and is treated equivalently to data.  More on
              canonical XML can be found at http://www.jclark.com/xml/canonxml.html .

       -e encoding
       -r     Normally xmlwf memory-maps the XML file before parsing; this can result in faster parsing on many plat‐
              forms.  -r turns off memory-mapping and uses normal file IO calls instead.  Of  course,  memory-mapping
              is automatically turned off when reading from standard input.

              Use  of  memory-mapping can cause some platforms to report substantially higher memory usage for xmlwf,
              but this appears to be a matter of the operating system reporting memory in a strange way; there is not
              a leak in xmlwf.

       -s     Prints an error if the document is not standalone.  A document is standalone if it has no external sub‐
              set and no references to parameter entities.

       -t     Turns on timings.  This tells Expat to parse the entire file, but not  perform  any  processing.   This
              gives  a  fairly  accurate idea of the raw speed of Expat itself without client overhead.  -t turns off
              most of the output options (-d, -m, -c, ...).

       -v     Prints the version of the Expat library being used, including some information on the compile-time con‐
              figuration of the library, and then exits.

       -w     Enables  support  for  Windows  code  pages.   Normally, xmlwf will throw an error if it runs across an
              encoding that it is not equipped to handle itself.  With -w, xmlwf will try to use a Windows code page.
              See also -e.

       -x     Turns on parsing external entities.

              Non-validating  parsers  are not required to resolve external entities, or even expand entities at all.
              Expat always expands internal entities (?), but external entity parsing must be enabled explicitly.

              External entities are simply entities that obtain their data from outside the XML file currently  being
              parsed.

              This is an example of an internal entity:

              <!ENTITY vers '1.0.2'>

              And here are some examples of external entities:

              <!ENTITY header SYSTEM "header-&vers;.xml">  (parsed)
              <!ENTITY logo SYSTEM "logo.png" PNG>         (unparsed)

       --     (Two  hyphens.)   Terminates  the  list  of  options.   This is only needed if a filename starts with a
              hyphen.  For example:

              xmlwf -- -myfile.xml

              will run xmlwf on the file -myfile.xml.

       Older versions of xmlwf do not support reading from standard input.

OUTPUT
       If an input file is not well-formed, xmlwf prints a single line describing the problem to standard output.  If
       a file is well formed, xmlwf outputs nothing.  Note that the result code is not set.

BUGS
       According  to  the  W3C  standard,  an XML file without a declaration at the beginning is not considered well-

ALTERNATIVES
       Here are some XML validators on the web:

       http://www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/~richard/xml-check.html
       http://www.stg.brown.edu/service/xmlvalid/
       http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/xml/code/xmlValidator.html
       http://www.xml.com/pub/a/tools/ruwf/check.html

SEE ALSO
       The Expat home page:        http://www.libexpat.org/
       The W3 XML specification:   http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml

AUTHOR
       This  manual  page was written by Scott Bronson <[email protected]> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may
       be used by others).  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms  of
       the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1.



                                                   24 January 2003                                           XMLWF(1)