Interface applications with the Markup Validator through its experimental API.
Note: Please be considerate in using this shared, free resource. Consider Installing your own instance of the validator for smooth and fast operation. Excessive use of the W3C Validation Service will be blocked.
Below is a table of the parameter you can use to send a query to the W3C Markup Validator.
If you want to use W3c's public validation server, use the parameters below
in conjunction with the following base URI:
http://validator.w3.org/check
(replace with the address of your own server if you want to call a private instance of the validator)
Note: If you wish to call the validator programmatically for a batch of documents,
please make sure that your script will sleep for at least 1 second
between requests. The Markup Validation service is a free, public service for all, your respect
is appreciated. thanks.
| Parameter | Description | Default value |
|---|---|---|
| uri | The URL of the document to validate | None, but either this parameter, or uploaded_file,
or fragment must be given. |
| uploaded_file | The document to validate, POSTed as multipart/form-data | None, but either this parameter, or uri,
or fragment must be given. |
| fragment | The source of the document to validate. Full documents only. At the moment, will only work if data is sent with the UTF-8 encoding. | None, but either this parameter, or uri,
or uploaded_file must be given. |
| output | triggers the various outputs formats of the validator. If unset, the usual
Web format will be sent. If set to soap12, the SOAP1.2 interface will
be triggered. See below for the SOAP 1.2 response format description. |
unset |
| charset | Character encoding override:
Specify the character encoding to use when parsing the document. When used with
the auxiliary parameter fbc set to 1, the given encoding will only be used as
a fallback value, in case the charset is absent or unrecognized. Note that this parameter
is ignored if validating a fragment with the direct input interface. |
None, by default the validator detects the charset of the document automatically. |
| doctype | Document Type override:
Specify the Document Type (DOCTYPE) to use when parsing the document. When used
with the auxiliary parameter fbd set to 1, the given document type will only be used
as a fallback value, in case the document's DOCTYPE declaration is missing or unrecognized. |
None, by default the validator detects the document type of the document automatically. |
| verbose | In the web interface, when set to 1, will make error messages, explanations and other diagnostics more verbose. In SOAP output, does not have any impact. | 0 (unset) |
| ss | as show source. In the web interface, triggers the display of the source after the validation results. In SOAP output, does not have any impact. | 0 (unset) |
| outline | In the web interface, when set to 1, triggers the display of the document outline after the validation results. In SOAP output, does not have any impact. | 0 (unset) |
| sp | In the web interface, when set to 1, triggers the display of the parsing tree
after the validation results. When used with the auxiliary parameter noatt
set to 1, the parse tree will not display attributes. In SOAP output, does not have any impact. |
0 (unset) |
When called with parameter output=soap12, the validator will switch
to its SOAP 1.2 interface (experimental for now). Below is a sample response, as well as
a description of the most important elements of the response.
A SOAP response for the validation of a document (invalid) will look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"> <env:Body> <m:markupvalidationresponse env:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-encoding" xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/2005/10/markup-validator"> <m:uri>http://qa-dev.w3.org/wmvs/HEAD/dev/tests/xhtml1-bogus-element.html</m:uri> <m:checkedby>http://validator.w3.org/</m:checkedby> <m:doctype>-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN</m:doctype> <m:charset>utf-8</m:charset> <m:validity>false</m:validity> <m:errors> <m:errorcount>1</m:errorcount> <m:errorlist> <m:error> <m:line>13</m:line> <m:col>6</m:col> <m:message>element "foo" undefined</m:message> </m:error> </m:errorlist> </m:errors> <m:warnings> <m:warningcount>0</m:warningcount> <m:warninglist> </m:warninglist> </m:warnings> </m:markupvalidationresponse> </env:Body> </env:Envelope>
| element | description |
|---|---|
| markupvalidationresponse | The main element of the validation response. Encloses all other information about the validation results. |
| uri | the address of the document validated. Will (likely?) be upload://Form Submission if an uploaded document or fragment was validated. In EARL terms, this is the TestSubject. |
| checkedby | Location of the service which provided the validation result. In EARL terms, this is the Assertor. |
| doctype | Detected (or forced) Document Type for the validated document |
| charset | Detected (or forced) Character Encoding for the validated document |
| validity | Whether or not the document validated passed or not formal validation (true|false boolean) |
| errors | Encapsulates all data about errors encountered through the validation process |
| errorcount | a child of errors, counts the number of errors listed |
| errorlist | a child of errors, contains the list of errors (surprise!) |
| error | a child of errorlist, contains the information on a single validation error. |
Note: warnings, warningcount,
warninglist and warning are similar to, respectively,
errors,
errorcount,
errorlist and
error.
As seen as the example above, the children of the error
element, but also the warning element are line, col and
message, defined below:
| element | description |
|---|---|
| line | Within the source code of the validated document, refers to the line where the error was detected. |
| col | Within the source code of the validated document, refers to the line where the column was detected. |
| message | The actual error message |
| messageid | @@ not implemented yet@@ - should be the number of the error, as addressed internally by the validator |