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 stdin.

WELL-FORMED DOCUMENTS

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

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

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

       o There  is  exactly  one  root element.  This element must contain all
         other elements in the document.  Only comments, white space, and pro-
         cessing instructions may come after the close of the root element.

       o All elements nest properly.

       o All  attribute  values  are enclosed in quotes (either single or dou-
         ble).

       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 separate ("d output") or mashed  ("-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 outputs a canonical representa-
              tion (described below).  You can select different output formats
              using -c and -m.

              Specifies the character encoding for  the  document,  overriding
              any  document  encoding  declaration.   xmlwf  has four built-in
              encodings: US-ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16, and  ISO-8859-1.   Also  see
              the -w option.

       -m     Outputs  some strange sort of XML file that completely describes
              the the input file, including character postitions.  Requires -d
              to specify an output file.

       -n     Turns  on  namespace  processing.  (describe namespaces) -c dis-
              ables namespaces.

       -p     Tells xmlwf to process external DTDs and parameter entities.

              Normally xmlwf never parses parameter entities.  -p tells it  to
              always parse them.  -p implies -x.

       -r     Normally  xmlwf  memory-maps  the  XML  file before parsing.  -r
              turns off memory-mapping and uses normal file IO calls  instead.
              Of course, memory-mapping is automatically turned off when read-
              ing from STDIN.

       -s     Prints an error if the document is not standalone.   A  document
              is  standalone if it has no external subset 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, and then
              exits.

       -w     Enables 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'>

       puts 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-formed.  However, xmlwf allows this to
       pass.

       xmlwf returns a 0 - noerr result, even if the file is not  well-formed.
       There is no good way for a program to use xmlwf to quickly check a file
       -- it must parse xmlwf's STDOUT.

       The errors should go to STDERR, not stdout.

       There should be a way to get -d to send its  output  to  STDOUT  rather
       than forcing the user to send it to a file.

       I  have no idea why anyone would want to use the -d, -c and -m options.
       If someone could explain it to me, I'd like to add this information  to
       this manpage.

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



                                 22 April 2002                        XMLWF(1)