Documentation: Auxiliaries / WebLint

weblint \*(wV

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).

Weblint includes the following features:

*

by default checks for HTML 3.2 (Wilbur)

*

46 different checks and warnings

*

Warnings can be enabled/disabled individually, as per your preference

*

basic structure and syntax checks

*

warnings for use of unknown elements and element attributes.

*

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

*

overlapped or illegally nested elements.

*

do IMG elements have ALT text?

*

flags obsolete elements.

*

support for user and site configuration files

*

stylistic checks

*

checks for html which is not portable across all browsers

*

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

*

support for Netscape, and Microsoft HTML extensions

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.

-f config-file

Specify a weblint configuration file which should be used in place of the user's default config file, or the site configuration file.

-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

This prints out the URL for the online version of the weblint ToDo list. This includes known bugs, and requested/planned features.

-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 Microsoft. This can also be set in your weblint configuration file, described below.

HTML EXTENSIONS

Netscape

The HTML extensions supported by the Netscape browser, version 4.

Microsoft

The HTML extensions supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 4.

To enable an extension, you can either use the -x command-line switch:

    % weblint -x Netscape foobar.html

    # enable the Microsoft extensions
    extension Microsoft

CONFIGURATION FILE

set url-get = lynx -source

set message-style = lint

enable upper-case

disable obsolete

extension Netscape

ignore symlinks

Weblint also supports a site configuration file. If a user does not have a personal configuration file, then weblint will check for a local site configuration file. To provide such a file, create a directory such as /usr/local/weblint, and create a file global.weblintrc. You need to edit the weblint script and modify the $SITE_DIR variable, which you will find near the top of the file. For example:

    $SITE_DIR = '/usr/local/weblint';

If you have a site configuration file, then users can inherit the site defaults by adding the following line at the top of their .weblintrc file:

    use global weblintrc

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

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 heading - 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

<...> is extended markup (use '-x <extension>' to allow this).

Identifier: extension-markup

Default: enabled

attribute `...' for <...> is extended markup (use '-x <extension>' to allow this).

Identifier: extension-attribute

Default: enabled

value for attribute XYZ (xyz-value) of element FOOBAR should be quoted (i.e. XYZ='xyz-value')

Identifier: quote-attribute-value

Default: enabled

you should use '&gt;' in place of '>', even in a PRE element.

Identifier: meta-in-pre

Default: enabled

<A> should be inside <H?>, not <H?> inside <A>.

Identifier: heading-in-anchor

Default: enabled

The HTML spec. recommends the TITLE be no longer than 64 characters.

Identifier: title-length

Default: enabled

TESTSUITE

    % make test
    % ./test.pl

ftp://ftp.cre.canon.co.uk/pub/weblint/weblint.tar.gz
http://www.cre.canon.co.uk/~neilb/weblint/

    http://www.cre.canon.co.uk/~neilb/weblint/todo/