weblint

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

% weblint foobar.html ./dodgy-files/ index.html

% weblint http://www.foobar.com/

% lynx -source http://www.foobar.com/ | weblint -

home.html(9): unmatched </A> (no matching <A> seen).

The following checks are currently performed:

*

basic structure

*

unknown elements and element attributes.

*

context checks (where a tag must appear within a certain element).

*

overlapped elements.

*

expects to see a TITLE in the HEAD element.

*

do IMG elements have ALT text?

*

illegally nested elements.

*

mis-matched tags (e.g., <H1> ... </H2>)

*

unclosed elements (e.g., <H1> ... )

*

catches elements which should only appear once

*

flags obsolete elements.

*

odd number of quotes in tag.

*

order of headings.

*

potentially unclosed tags.

*

flags markup embedded in comments, since this can confuse some browsers.

*

whines if you use `here' as anchor text :-)

*

tags where attributes are expected (e.g. anchors).

*

existence of local anchor targets.

*

flag case of tags (not enabled by default).

*

leading and trailing whitespace in certain container elements

*

HTML 3 elements such as TABLE, MATH, and FIG are supported

*

expect a <LINK REV=MADE HREF=mailto:...> in HEAD element (not enabled by default).

*

unclosed comments (comments should be <!-- ... -->

OPTIONS

-d warning-identifier

Disable the warning associated with the identifier. Multiple identifiers can be specified, with a comma between identifiers.

-e warning-identifier

Enable the warning associated with the identifier. Multiple identifiers can be specified, with a comma between identifiers.

-help

Show a short usage summary.

-i

Ignore case of element tags.

-l

When recursing in directories, ignore any files which are symlinks (also known as soft links). This will also cause files on the command-line to be ignored if they are symlinks, unless only one file is given.

-pedantic

Turn on all warnings except the case-sensitive and bad-link warnings.

-s

Generate `short' warning messages, which do not include the filename.

-stderr

Print warning messages to STDERR rather than STDOUT.

-t

Enable terse warning mode, which is mainly useful for the weblint testsuite.

-U

Same as -help.

-urlget command

The command which should be used to retrieve HTML pages specified by URL.

-v

Display the version number.

-version

Display the version number.

-todo

If you have defined the url-get variable, then this option pulls down the current ToDo list from the main ftp site, else the URL for an online version of the ToDo list is printed.

-warnings

List all supported warnings, with warning identifier, and whether the warning is enabled.

-x extension

Include checks for the specified HTML extension; multiple extensions can be specified, separated with a comma. Currently the only extensions supported are Netscape and Java. This can also be set in your weblint configuration file, described below.

HTML EXTENSIONS

netscape

The HTML extensions supported by the netscape browser, version 1.1. The extensions supported by netscape 2.X will be supported in the next release of weblint.

java

The extensions supported by Java-enhanced browsers. This is the APPLET and PARAM elements. To enable an extension, you can either use the -x command-line switch:

    % weblint -x netscape foobar.html

Or you can use the extension keyword in your .weblintrc:

    # enable the java extensions (APPLET and PARAM elements)
    extension java

Multiple extensions can be enabled at the same time - they are separated with a comma, when using either mechanism:

    % weblint -x netscape,java foobar.html

    extension netscape,java

CONFIGURATION FILE

# specify the command used to retrieve URLs (-urlget switch)
set url-get = lynx -source

# the style of warning message to generate (lint, short, or terse)
set message-style = lint

# enable warning for tags not in upper-case
enable upper-case

# disable the warning for obsolete tags
disable obsolete

# enable the netscape HTML extensions
extension netscape

# or, to enable both Netscape and Java extensions
extension netscape,java

# when recursing in a directory,
# ignore files which are symlinks (also known as soft links)
ignore symlinks

A sample configuration file is included in the weblint distribution (as of version 1.004), which mirrors the configuration built-in to weblint.  

WARNINGS

tag <...> is not in upper case.

Identifier: upper-case

Default: disabled

tag <...> is not in lower case.

Identifier: lower-case

Default: disabled

foo attribute is required for <...>

Identifier: required-attribute

Default: enabled

expected an attribute for <...>

Identifier: expected-attribute

Default: enabled

unknown element <...>

Identifier: unknown-element

Default: enabled

unknown attribute `...' for element <...>.

Identifier: unknown-attribute

Default: enabled

should not have whitespace between `<' and `...>'

Identifier: leading-whitespace

Default: enabled

bad form to use `here' as an anchor!

Identifier: here-anchor

Default: enabled

no <TITLE> in HEAD element.

Identifier: require-head

Default: enabled

tag <...> should only appear once. I saw one on line XX!

Identifier: once-only

Default: enabled

<BODY> but no <HEAD>.

Identifier: body-no-head

Default: enabled

outer tags should be <HTML> .. </HTML>.

Identifier: html-outer

Default: enabled

<...> can only appear in the HEAD element.

Identifier: head-element

Default: enabled

<...> cannot appear in the HEAD element.

Identifier: non-head-element

Default: enabled

<...> is obsolete.

Identifier: obsolete

Default: enabled

unmatched </...> (no matching <...> seen).

Identifier: mis-match

Default: enabled

IMG does not have ALT text defined.

Identifier: img-alt

Default: enabled

<...> cannot be nested.

Identifier: nested-element

Default: enabled

Did not see <LINK REV=MADE HREF=mailto:...> in HEAD.

Identifier: mailto-link

Default: disabled

</...> on line XX seems to overlap <...>, opened on line YY.

Identifier: element-overlap

Default: enabled

no closing </...> seen for <...> on line XX.

Identifier: unclosed-element

Default: enabled

markup embedded in a comment can confuse some browsers.

Identifier: markup-in-comment

Default: enabled

odd number of quotes in element <...>.

Identifier: odd-quotes

Default: enabled

heading <H?> follows <H?> on line N.

Identifier: heading-order

Default: enabled

target for anchor ... not found.

Identifier: bad-link

Default: disabled

unexpected < in <...> -- potentially unclosed element.

Identifier: unexpected-open

Default: enabled

illegal context for <...> - must appear in <...> element.

Identifier: required-context

Default: enabled

unclosed comment (comment should be: <!-- ... -->

Identifier: unclosed-comment

Default: enabled

element <...> is not a container -- </...> not legal.

Identifier: illegal-closing

Default: enabled

<...> is physical font markup -- use logical (such as XXX)

Identifier: physical-font

Default: disabled

attribute XYZ is repeated in element <...>

Identifier: repeated-attribute

Default: enabled

empty container element <...>

Identifier: empty-container

Default: enabled

use of ' for attribute value delimiter is not supported by all browsers (attribute XYZ of tag ABC)

Identifier: attribute-delimiter

Default: enabled

attribute `...' for <...> is netscape specific (use `-x netscape' to allow this).

Identifier: netscape-attribute

Default: enabled

closing tag <...> should not have any attributes specified.

Identifier: closing-attribute

Default: enabled

directory DIR does not have an index file (index.html)

Identifier: directory-index

Default: enabled

<...> must immediately follow <...>

Identifier: must-follow

Default: enabled

setting WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes on IMG tag can improve rendering performance on some browsers

Identifier: img-size

Default: disabled

leading/trailing whitespace in content of container element ...

Identifier: container-whitespace

Default: disabled

first element was not DOCTYPE specification

Identifier: require-doctype

Default: disabled

`>' should be represented as `&gt;'

Identifier: literal-metacharacter

Default: enabled

malformed header - open tag is <H?>, but closing is </H?>

Identifier: heading-mismatch

Default: enabled

illegal context, <...>, for text; should be in XXX.

Identifier: bad-text-context

Default: enabled

illegal value for AAA attribute of XXX (...)

Identifier: attribute-format

Default: enabled

TESTSUITE

    % make test
    % ./test.pl

ftp://ftp.khoral.com/pub/weblint/weblint.tar.gz
http://www.khoral.com/staff/neilb/weblint.html