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.TH "XMLWF" "1" "24 January 2003" "" ""
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xmlwf \- Determines if an XML document is well-formed
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\fBxmlwf\fR [ \fB-s\fR] [ \fB-n\fR] [ \fB-p\fR] [ \fB-x\fR] [ \fB-e \fIencoding\fB\fR] [ \fB-w\fR] [ \fB-d \fIoutput-dir\fB\fR] [ \fB-c\fR] [ \fB-m\fR] [ \fB-r\fR] [ \fB-t\fR] [ \fB-v\fR] [ \fBfile ...\fR]
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\fBxmlwf\fR uses the Expat library to
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determine if an XML document is well-formed. It is
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If you do not specify any files on the command-line, and you
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have a recent version of \fBxmlwf\fR, the
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input file will be read from standard input.
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.SH "WELL-FORMED DOCUMENTS"
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A well-formed document must adhere to the
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The file begins with an XML declaration. For instance,
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<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>.
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\fBxmlwf\fR does not currently
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check for a valid XML declaration.
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Every start tag is either empty (<tag/>)
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or has a corresponding end tag.
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There is exactly one root element. This element must contain
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all other elements in the document. Only comments, white
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space, and processing instructions may come after the close
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All elements nest properly.
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All attribute values are enclosed in quotes (either single
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If the document has a DTD, and it strictly complies with that
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DTD, then the document is also considered \fBvalid\fR.
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\fBxmlwf\fR is a non-validating parser --
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it does not check the DTD. However, it does support
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external entities (see the \fB-x\fR option).
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When an option includes an argument, you may specify the argument either
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separately ("\fB-d\fR output") or concatenated with the
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option ("\fB-d\fRoutput"). \fBxmlwf\fR
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If the input file is well-formed and \fBxmlwf\fR
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doesn't encounter any errors, the input file is simply copied to
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the output directory unchanged.
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This implies no namespaces (turns off \fB-n\fR) and
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requires \fB-d\fR to specify an output file.
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Specifies a directory to contain transformed
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representations of the input files.
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By default, \fB-d\fR outputs a canonical representation
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You can select different output formats using \fB-c\fR
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The output filenames will
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be exactly the same as the input filenames or "STDIN" if the input is
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coming from standard input. Therefore, you must be careful that the
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output file does not go into the same directory as the input
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file. Otherwise, \fBxmlwf\fR will delete the
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input file before it generates the output file (just like running
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cat < file > file in most shells).
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Two structurally equivalent XML documents have a byte-for-byte
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identical canonical XML representation.
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Note that ignorable white space is considered significant and
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is treated equivalently to data.
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More on canonical XML can be found at
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http://www.jclark.com/xml/canonxml.html .
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Specifies the character encoding for the document, overriding
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any document encoding declaration. \fBxmlwf\fR
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supports four built-in encodings:
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Also see the \fB-w\fR option.
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Outputs some strange sort of XML file that completely
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describes the the input file, including character postitions.
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Requires \fB-d\fR to specify an output file.
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Turns on namespace processing. (describe namespaces)
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\fB-c\fR disables namespaces.
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Tells xmlwf to process external DTDs and parameter
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Normally \fBxmlwf\fR never parses parameter
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entities. \fB-p\fR tells it to always parse them.
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\fB-p\fR implies \fB-x\fR.
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Normally \fBxmlwf\fR memory-maps the XML file
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before parsing; this can result in faster parsing on many
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\fB-r\fR turns off memory-mapping and uses normal file
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Of course, memory-mapping is automatically turned off
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when reading from standard input.
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Use of memory-mapping can cause some platforms to report
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substantially higher memory usage for
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\fBxmlwf\fR, but this appears to be a matter of
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the operating system reporting memory in a strange way; there is
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not a leak in \fBxmlwf\fR.
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Prints an error if the document is not standalone.
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A document is standalone if it has no external subset and no
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references to parameter entities.
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Turns on timings. This tells Expat to parse the entire file,
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but not perform any processing.
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This gives a fairly accurate idea of the raw speed of Expat itself
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without client overhead.
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\fB-t\fR turns off most of the output options
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(\fB-d\fR, \fB-m\fR, \fB-c\fR,
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Prints the version of the Expat library being used, including some
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information on the compile-time configuration of the library, and
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Enables support for Windows code pages.
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Normally, \fBxmlwf\fR will throw an error if it
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runs across an encoding that it is not equipped to handle itself. With
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\fB-w\fR, xmlwf will try to use a Windows code
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page. See also \fB-e\fR.
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Turns on parsing external entities.
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Non-validating parsers are not required to resolve external
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entities, or even expand entities at all.
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Expat always expands internal entities (?),
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but external entity parsing must be enabled explicitly.
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External entities are simply entities that obtain their
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data from outside the XML file currently being parsed.
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This is an example of an internal entity:
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<!ENTITY vers '1.0.2'>
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And here are some examples of external entities:
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<!ENTITY header SYSTEM "header-&vers;.xml"> (parsed)
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<!ENTITY logo SYSTEM "logo.png" PNG> (unparsed)
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Terminates the list of options. This is only needed if a filename
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starts with a hyphen. For example:
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will run \fBxmlwf\fR on the file
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Older versions of \fBxmlwf\fR do not support
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reading from standard input.
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If an input file is not well-formed,
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\fBxmlwf\fR prints a single line describing
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the problem to standard output. If a file is well formed,
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\fBxmlwf\fR outputs nothing.
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Note that the result code is \fBnot\fR set.
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According to the W3C standard, an XML file without a
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declaration at the beginning is not considered well-formed.
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However, \fBxmlwf\fR allows this to pass.
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\fBxmlwf\fR returns a 0 - noerr result,
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even if the file is not well-formed. There is no good way for
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a program to use \fBxmlwf\fR to quickly
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check a file -- it must parse \fBxmlwf\fR's
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The errors should go to standard error, not standard output.
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There should be a way to get \fB-d\fR to send its
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output to standard output rather than forcing the user to send
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I have no idea why anyone would want to use the
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\fB-d\fR, \fB-c\fR, and
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\fB-m\fR options. If someone could explain it to
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me, I'd like to add this information to this manpage.
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Here are some XML validators on the web:
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http://www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/~richard/xml-check.html
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http://www.stg.brown.edu/service/xmlvalid/
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http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/xml/code/xmlValidator.html
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http://www.xml.com/pub/a/tools/ruwf/check.html
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The Expat home page: http://www.libexpat.org/
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The W3 XML specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml
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This manual page was written by Scott Bronson <bronson@rinspin.com> for
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the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). Permission is
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granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under
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the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
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License, Version 1.1.