The
xmllint
program parses one or more XML files, specified on the command line as
XML-FILE
(or the standard input if the filename provided is
-
). It prints various types of output, depending upon the options selected. It is useful for detecting errors both in
XML
code and in the
XML
parser itself.
xmllint
accepts the following options (in alphabetical order):
--auto
Generate a small document for testing purposes.
--catalogs
Use the catalogs from
SGML_CATALOG_FILES. Otherwise
/etc/xml/catalog
is used by default.
--chkregister
Turn on node registration. Useful for developers testing
libxml(3)
node tracking code.
--compress
Turn on
gzip
compression of output.
--copy
Test the internal copy implementation.
--c14n
Use the W3C XML Canonicalisation (C14N) to serialize the result of parsing to
stdout. It keeps comments in the result.
--dtdvalid URL
Use the
DTD
specified by an
URL
for validation.
--dtdvalidfpi FPI
Use the
DTD
specified by a Public Identifier
FPI
for validation, note that this will require a Catalog exporting that Public Identifier to work.
--debug
Parse a file and output an annotated tree of the in-memory version of the document.
--debugent
Debug the entities defined in the document.
--dropdtd
Remove
DTD
from output.
--dtdattr
Fetch external
DTD
and populate the tree with inherited attributes.
--encode ENCODING
Output in the given encoding.
--format
Reformat and reindent the output. The
XMLLINT_INDENT
environment variable controls the indentation (default value is two spaces " ").
--help
Print out a short usage summary for
xmllint.
--html
Use the
HTML
parser.
--htmlout
Output results as an
HTML
file. This causes
xmllint
to output the necessary
HTML
tags surrounding the result tree output so the results can be displayed/viewed in a browser.
--insert
Test for valid insertions.
--loaddtd
Fetch external
DTD.
--load-trace
Display all the documents loaded during the processing to
stderr.
--maxmem NNBYTES
Test the parser memory support.
NNBYTES
is the maximum number of bytes the library is allowed to allocate. This can also be used to make sure batch processing of
XML
files will not exhaust the virtual memory of the server running them.
--memory
Parse from memory.
--noblanks
Drop ignorable blank spaces.
--nocatalogs
Do not use any catalogs.
--nocdata
Substitute CDATA section by equivalent text nodes.
--noent
Substitute entity values for entity references. By default,
xmllint
leaves entity references in place.
--nonet
Do not use the Internet to fetch
DTDs or entities.
--noout
Suppress output. By default,
xmllint
outputs the result tree.
--nowarning
Do not emit warnings from the parser and/or validator.
--nowrap
Do not output
HTML
doc wrapper.
--noxincludenode
Do XInclude processing but do not generate XInclude start and end nodes.
--nsclean
Remove redundant namespace declarations.
--output FILE
Define a file path where
xmllint
will save the result of parsing. Usually the programs build a tree and save it on
stdout, with this option the result
XML
instance will be saved onto a file.
--path "PATH(S)"
Use the (space- or colon-separated) list of filesystem paths specified by
PATHS
to load
DTDs or entities. Enclose space-separated lists by quotation marks.
--pattern PATTERNVALUE
Used to exercise the pattern recognition engine, which can be used with the reader interface to the parser. It allows to select some nodes in the document based on an XPath (subset) expression. Used for debugging.
--postvalid
Validate after parsing is completed.
--push
Use the push mode of the parser.
--recover
Output any parsable portions of an invalid document.
--relaxng SCHEMA
Use RelaxNG file named
SCHEMA
for validation.
--repeat
Repeat 100 times, for timing or profiling.
--schema SCHEMA
Use a W3C XML Schema file named
SCHEMA
for validation.
--shell
Run a navigating shell. Details on available commands in shell mode are below (see
the section called lqSHELL COMMANDSrq).
--stream
Use streaming API - useful when used in combination with
--relaxng
or
--valid
options for validation of files that are too large to be held in memory.
--testIO
Test user input/output support.
--timing
Output information about the time it takes
xmllint
to perform the various steps.
--valid
Determine if the document is a valid instance of the included Document Type Definition (DTD). A
DTD
to be validated against also can be specified at the command line using the
--dtdvalid
option. By default,
xmllint
also checks to determine if the document is well-formed.
Test the walker module, which is a reader interface but for a document tree, instead of using the reader
API
on an unparsed document it works on a existing in-memory tree. Used in debugging.
--xinclude
Do XInclude processing.
--xmlout
Used in conjunction with
--html. Usually when
HTML
is parsed the document is saved with the
HTML
serializer, but with this option the resulting document is saved with the
XML
serializer. This is primarily used to generate
XHTML
from
HTML
input.
SHELL COMMANDS
xmllint
offers an interactive shell mode invoked with the
--shell
command. Available commands in shell mode include (in alphabetical order):
base
Display
XML
base of the node.
bye
Leave the shell.
cat NODE
Display the given node or the current one.
cd PATH
Change the current node to the given path (if unique) or root if no argument is given.
dir PATH
Dumps information about the node (namespace, attributes, content).
du PATH
Show the structure of the subtree under the given path or the current node.
exit
Leave the shell.
help
Show this help.
free
Display memory usage.
load FILENAME
Load a new document with the given filename.
ls PATH
List contents of the given path or the current directory.
pwd
Display the path to the current node.
quit
Leave the shell.
save FILENAME
Save the current document to the given filename or to the original name.
validate
Check the document for errors.
write FILENAME
Write the current node to the given filename.
ENVIRONMENT
SGML_CATALOG_FILES
to be written ...
XML_CATALOG_FILES
Catalog behavior can be changed by redirecting queries to the user's own set of catalogs. This can be done by setting the
XML_CATALOG_FILES
environment variable to a list of catalogs. An empty one should deactivate loading the default
/etc/xml/catalog
default catalog.
XML_DEBUG_CATALOG
Setting the environment variable
XML_DEBUG_CATALOG
using the
export
command outputs debugging information related to catalog operations.
XMLLINT_INDENT
to be written ...
DIAGNOSTICS
On the completion of execution,
xmllint
returns the following error codes:
0
No error
1
Unclassified
2
Error in
DTD
3
Validation error
4
Validation error
5
Error in schema compilation
6
Error writing output
7
Error in pattern (generated when
--pattern
option is used)
8
Error in Reader registration (generated when
--chkregister
option is used)