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Validating against a higher standard

The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Just last night, it took me two hours to track down some funny behavior. It
turned out to be caused by entries in a definition list that looked like:
<dt>Term<dt>
<dd>Definition</dd>

A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.

It takes good eyesight and good concentration to find things like this,
and since these are apparently valid html, the W3C validator doesn't
help as much as I'd like.

Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If it's "tourist season", where do I get my license?
Sep 5 '08 #1
76 2996
Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote:
: A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
: weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.

The W3C Validator has been catching those for me.
--thelma

: Michael F. Stemper

Sep 5 '08 #2
Thelma Roslyn Lubkin wrote:
Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote:
: A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
: weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.

The W3C Validator has been catching those for me.
--thelma
You must be validating your code as XHTML. XHTML, like all XML
languages, requires explicit start and end tags. Under non-XML HTML, the
missing </tdis legal, so there isn't an error for the validator to catch.
Sep 5 '08 #3
In our last episode, <g9**********@aioe.org>, the lovely and talented
Michael Stemper broadcast on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.
Install nsgmls from James Clark's SP or the OpenSp package. Get a copy of
whatever DTD you are using. Edit it so it requires closing tags. With a
little supervision, you can do this with search-and-replace to change
<space>O<spacewith <space>-<spaceexcept where O is followed by EMPTY. If
you cannot read a DTD by eyeball, you may have to brush up to assure this
gets done correctly. Use switches in nsgmls to make it use the local (doped)
copy of the DTD instead of the one specified in the DOCTYPE (it would fetch
the non-doped from the web if it could). Throw away the output and look at
the errors. (There won't be any if al is well.)

You can use to Tidy to add closing tags, but Tidy is not a validator and
does some other stuff to markup you may not want.
Just last night, it took me two hours to track down some funny behavior. It
turned out to be caused by entries in a definition list that looked like:
<dt>Term<dt>
<dd>Definition</dd>
A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.
It takes good eyesight and good concentration to find things like this,
and since these are apparently valid html, the W3C validator doesn't
help as much as I'd like.
Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/us****@larseighner.com
War on Terrorism: Treat Readers like Mushrooms
"If the story needs rewriting to play down the civilian casualties, DO IT."
-Memo, _Panama City_ (FL) _News Herald_
Sep 5 '08 #4
Harlan Messinger <hm*******************@comcast.netwrote:
: Thelma Roslyn Lubkin wrote:
:Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote:
:: A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
:: weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.
:>
: The W3C Validator has been catching those for me.
: --thelma

: You must be validating your code as XHTML. XHTML, like all XML
: languages, requires explicit start and end tags. Under non-XML HTML, the
: missing </tdis legal, so there isn't an error for the validator to catch.

Yes, you're right. --thelma
Sep 5 '08 #5
In article <g9**********@aioe.org>,
ms******@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Just last night, it took me two hours to track down some funny behavior. It
turned out to be caused by entries in a definition list that looked like:
<dt>Term<dt>
<dd>Definition</dd>

A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.

It takes good eyesight and good concentration to find things like this,
and since these are apparently valid html, the W3C validator doesn't
help as much as I'd like.

Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?
There are a number of ways of going on this one. One way is to use a
text editor that can be set to give you "warnings" of missing closing
tags (even though it is strictly not illegal). My BBEdit (on a Mac) does
this and most usefully!

The other way is to create your own doctype using standard ones with
whatever enhancements you want.

Perhaps you might care to browse through:

<http://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html>

--
dorayme
Sep 5 '08 #6
On 2008-09-05, Michael Stemper wrote:
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Just last night, it took me two hours to track down some funny behavior. It
turned out to be caused by entries in a definition list that looked like:
<dt>Term<dt>
<dd>Definition</dd>

A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.

It takes good eyesight and good concentration to find things like this,
and since these are apparently valid html, the W3C validator doesn't
help as much as I'd like.

Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?
I find that GNU emacs's HTML mode indentation works well for this.
If tags are not closed, the indentation doesn't work properly. It
still requires some searching, but at least you know when there's
a missing tag.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
Sep 6 '08 #7
Lars Eighner wrote:
>The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm
looking for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for
implicit termination of an element; my intention and desire is to
explicitly terminate every element.

Install nsgmls from James Clark's SP or the OpenSp package.
You don't need that. Any validator will do, such as the W3C validator. (Of
course, I'm not referring to products other than validators sold as
validators.)
Get a copy of whatever DTD you are using. Edit it so it requires closing
tags.
Well, that's the simple way, though not trivial, but good instructions for
this special case were given. And then you just upload the DTD file on a web
server and refer to it in your doctype declaration. More on this:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/own-dtd.html

Yucca

Sep 6 '08 #8
In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html on Fri, 5 Sep 2008 19:35:48
+0200 (CEST), Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote:
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Just last night, it took me two hours to track down some funny behavior. It
turned out to be caused by entries in a definition list that looked like:
<dt>Term<dt>
<dd>Definition</dd>

A few years back, I was bit by Mosaic's behavior when <tdelements
weren't explictly terminated with a </td>.

It takes good eyesight and good concentration to find things like this,
and since these are apparently valid html, the W3C validator doesn't
help as much as I'd like.

Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?
pcregrep -M '(<[^<>]+>)[^<>]+\1' <filename>

This will catch simple examples such as the one you've provided. It
won't catch nested examples, such as "<p><em>test</em><p>" and it will
catch false positives such as "<br><br>", but perhaps it's a start.

Any other variety of grep that offers multi-line matching will work
as well.
--
PJR :-)
slrn newsreader (v0.9.9): http://slrn.sourceforge.net/
extra slrn documentation: http://slrn-doc.sourceforge.net/
newsgroup name validator: http://pjr.lasnobberia.net/usenet/validator
Sep 6 '08 #9
On 2008-09-06, Peter J Ross <pj*@example.invalidwrote:
In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html on Fri, 5 Sep 2008 19:35:48
+0200 (CEST), Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote:
[...]
>Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?

pcregrep -M '(<[^<>]+>)[^<>]+\1' <filename>

This will catch simple examples such as the one you've provided. It
won't catch nested examples, such as "<p><em>test</em><p>" and it will
catch false positives such as "<br><br>", but perhaps it's a start.

Any other variety of grep that offers multi-line matching will work
as well.
Using a custom DTD seems to me like the best idea.

But if you were to use something like grep, this sounds like a job for
sgrep.

e.g.:

$ sgrep -o "Unclosed <pat %f:%i" '"<p>" not in inner("<p>" .. "</p>")' *.html

%i prints out a character position not a line-number, so in vim for
example you'd use the :go command to find them.

This will work reliably, but not for ps with attributes, <p class="foo">
etc.

Sgrep would be improved in my opinion if you could use regular
expressions for what it calls "phrases" in its grammar.

Maybe you could build up expressions with "chars" but I get this error:

Parse error in command line expression column 1 :
'chars' disabled until I figure out how to fix it (JJ)

Probably better to do a hybrid approach: pre-process the input first to
remove all attributes from all elements with a regex and then look for
the unclosed <p>s, <td>s etc. with sgrep.
Sep 6 '08 #10
On 2008-09-06, Peter J Ross <pj*@example.invalidwrote:
[...]
>Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?
There is now: http://www.tidraso.co.uk/code/checkUnclosed.py.gz
Sep 6 '08 #11
On 09/05/08 10:35 am, Michael Stemper wrote:
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Just last night, it took me two hours to track down some funny behavior. It
turned out to be caused by entries in a definition list that looked like:
<dt>Term<dt>
<dd>Definition</dd>
Have it validate to XHTML Strict. The W3C validator allows you to select
which DTD to test the markup.
XHTML requires closure for all elements. It also requires all tag and
attribute names in lower case, and attribute values in quotes.

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)
Sep 6 '08 #12
In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html message <g9**********@aioe.org>,
Fri, 5 Sep 2008 19:35:48, Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.com
posted:
>Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?
It should be easy enough to write a RegExp (or RegExps) to find for
removal all known elements that don't use termination (e.g. <br>).
Having done that, it should be easy enough to write a RegExp that finds
for removal all instances of (ignore whitespace)
< word anything anything-without-< < / same-word >
and to use it repeatedly until there are no more matches.

Assuming that you put spaces around relational operators, and encode
then in strings, in embedded JavaScript, then it seems at first thought
that a satisfactory document will yield an empty string, and a failing
one will yield a string from which at least one error can easily be
spotted.

Alternatively, a program could be written in a general language.

I might try it; but don't hold your breath waiting.
Since TIDY inserts terminations but alters whitespace, one might write a
tool to take a document and reduce all whitespaces to single spaces.
Apply that tool to the original and tidied documents. Then do a binary
comparison (DOS COMP) to find the first difference. UNTESTED.

I use TIDY very frequently; but (from a batch file) as a checker only,
since I don't want layout changed.

One might also look, though maybe not needed in this context, for
elements which illegally contain, directly or indirectly, others of
themselves.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/- FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Proper <= 4-line sig. separator as above, a line exactly "-- " (SonOfRFC1036)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with ">" or "" (SonOfRFC1036)
Sep 6 '08 #13
In our last episode, <Id*******************@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi> , the
lovely and talented Jukka K. Korpela broadcast on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
Lars Eighner wrote:
>>The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm
looking for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for
implicit termination of an element; my intention and desire is to
explicitly terminate every element.

Install nsgmls from James Clark's SP or the OpenSp package.
You don't need that. Any validator will do, such as the W3C validator. (Of
course, I'm not referring to products other than validators sold as
validators.)
I never figured out how to stream the document in my editor through
W3C and send the errors to another buffer in the editor. Installing an SP
package is much simpler and easier. Of course it cannot generate warnings
for HTML requirements that cannot be expressed expressed as sgml. But it
more than makes up for that in being simple to incorporate in make files,
other batch processing, and even in the open and save keystrokes of
an editor, so documents are checked whenever they are opened, whenever they
are saved, or at any time they are open in the editor.

>Get a copy of whatever DTD you are using. Edit it so it requires closing
tags.
Well, that's the simple way, though not trivial, but good instructions for
this special case were given. And then you just upload the DTD file on a web
server and refer to it in your doctype declaration.
Using a local doped DTD it is unnecessary to mess with the DOCTYPE.
More on this:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/own-dtd.html
Yucca
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/us****@larseighner.com
War on Terrorism: Camp Follower
"I am ... a total sucker for the guys ... with all the ribbons on and stuff,
and they say it's true and I'm ready to believe it. -Cokie Roberts,_ABC_
Sep 6 '08 #14
Lars Eighner wrote:
I never figured out how to stream the document in my editor through
W3C and send the errors to another buffer in the editor. Installing
an SP package is much simpler and easier.
It may suit your needs, but for an ordinary HTML author, that's
unnecessarily complicated. For all that we can know, he might even lack the
privileges required for installing any software in the computer he uses (at
work).
Using a local doped DTD it is unnecessary to mess with the DOCTYPE.
The doctype declaration is the normal SGML (and XML) way of specifying the
syntax being used. It works globally, so that you can pass the document to
_any_ validating parser.

You need a doctype declaration anyway, to keep browsers away from Quirks
Mode, so why not make it declare the syntax you are trying to use? This
approach also lets you use _different_ syntax definitions, e.g. normally
using some "stricter than Strict" but using something else when really
needed (say, when you need to use a Transitional feature for some special
reason, or markup like <wbr>).

Yucca

Sep 6 '08 #15
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 22:47:52 +0300, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
Lars Eighner wrote:
>I never figured out how to stream the document in my editor through
W3C and send the errors to another buffer in the editor. Installing
an SP package is much simpler and easier.

It may suit your needs, but for an ordinary HTML author, that's
unnecessarily complicated.
Hm, what's complicated about typing "nsgml -s foo.html" and reading
the error messages?

I'm assuming here that imstallation is easy -- on a Debian system I
just ask for the standard packages "opensp" and "sgml-data", and
everything is set up properly for validating various kinds of HTML
(and probably other things as well).
For all that we can know, he might even lack the
privileges required for installing any software in the computer he uses (at
work).
Yes, but you cannot assume this is the case whenever someone posts a
question.
>Using a local doped DTD it is unnecessary to mess with the DOCTYPE.

The doctype declaration is the normal SGML (and XML) way of specifying the
syntax being used. It works globally, so that you can pass the document to
_any_ validating parser.

You need a doctype declaration anyway, to keep browsers away from Quirks
Mode, so why not make it declare the syntax you are trying to use? This
approach also lets you use _different_ syntax definitions, e.g. normally
using some "stricter than Strict" but using something else when really
needed (say, when you need to use a Transitional feature for some special
reason, or markup like <wbr>).
Nice in a way, but what will browsers and other tools do when your
page announces "I am not one of the known HTML variants, I am
something else and you can find my DTD over there"? Or am I missing
something?

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/ snipabacken.se R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Sep 6 '08 #16
In our last episode, <sl***********************@frailea.sa.invalid>, the
lovely and talented Jorgen Grahn broadcast on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

Nice in a way, but what will browsers and other tools do when your
page announces "I am not one of the known HTML variants, I am
something else and you can find my DTD over there"? Or am I missing
something?
It appears to me that some browsers do have parsers and using their
tools you can find a document listing with errors all in red and all.

However, it is far from clear to me that they can parse against an arbitrary
DTD or that they really parse as they render. If know one knows, maybe
I will do some experiments since I have the doped DTD and a testing
server set up locally.

--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/us****@larseighner.com
War on Terrorism: The Difference Between Us and Them
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and
convert them to Christianity." -- Ann Coulter
Sep 6 '08 #17
Jorgen Grahn wrote:
Hm, what's complicated about typing "nsgml -s foo.html"
Using command-line interface is complicated to most people. Using command
names that consist of consonants only makes it even stranger.
and reading the error messages?
Most people don't know how to read error messages, especially when the
messages are cryptic. The W3C validator and the WDG validator are familiar
to most people who care about validation, so why not use them?
I'm assuming here that imstallation is easy
Your assumption fails for the great majority of prospective HTML authors.
Besides, any installation is potentially complicated and risky, so you need
a _good_ reason.
-- on a Debian system
Who's Debian and why should we know him or her? (I know what Debian is, but
most people don't.)
>For all that we can know, he might even lack the
privileges required for installing any software in the computer he
uses (at work).

Yes, but you cannot assume this is the case whenever someone posts a
question.
Surely we _know_ that this _is_ the case for a considerable amount of
readers.

It's the other way around: When posting advice in an open newgroup, you
should not assume that readers can (and will) install any new software. An
answer that works with commonly used software is preferable unless some
other approach has tangible benefits.
>You need a doctype declaration anyway, to keep browsers away from
Quirks Mode, so why not make it declare the syntax you are trying to
use? This approach also lets you use _different_ syntax definitions,
e.g. normally using some "stricter than Strict" but using something
else when really needed (say, when you need to use a Transitional
feature for some special reason, or markup like <wbr>).

Nice in a way, but what will browsers and other tools do when your
page announces "I am not one of the known HTML variants, I am
something else and you can find my DTD over there"?
They simply set themselves to "standards" mode and start rendering. They
don't actually read the DTD, still less make use of it.

An ideal (by some criteria) browser might issue a warning to the user if the
page fails to comply with the DTD it declares. This shouldn't be a problem
to us, should it? Besides, it's pure theory, since on the Web as of now, a
very large amount of pages that declare some doctype doesn't actually comply
with it. Browsers have to be practical, so they don't care.

Using XHTML served as some flavor of XML might be different, but even then,
browsers are currently interested in well-formedness at most, and that
doesn't depend on DTDs.

Yucca

Sep 7 '08 #18
On 2008-09-07, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>Hm, what's complicated about typing "nsgml -s foo.html"

Using command-line interface is complicated to most people. Using command
names that consist of consonants only makes it even stranger.
>and reading the error messages?

Most people don't know how to read error messages, especially when the
messages are cryptic. The W3C validator and the WDG validator are familiar
to most people who care about validation, so why not use them?
It's a lot more annoying having to go through a website, and then after
validating you have to match up the errors to your sources manually and
then resubmit.

Much better to have a program that you can use from your editor and that
can put the errors in your "quickfix list"-- so you can jump straight
from the error message to the line it's on, fix it and revalidate with
just one keypress.
>I'm assuming here that imstallation is easy

Your assumption fails for the great majority of prospective HTML authors.
Besides, any installation is potentially complicated and risky, so you need
a _good_ reason.
>-- on a Debian system

Who's Debian and why should we know him or her? (I know what Debian is, but
most people don't.)
That may be true but why keep people in the dark? There's no harm in
mentioning useful products like nsgmls and Debian-- then people can find
out more about them if they're interested.
Sep 7 '08 #19
Ben C wrote:
>Most people don't know how to read error messages, especially when
the messages are cryptic. The W3C validator and the WDG validator
are familiar to most people who care about validation, so why not
use them?

It's a lot more annoying having to go through a website, and then
after validating you have to match up the errors to your sources
manually and then resubmit.
You can ask a validator to list the source, with line numbers, if your
favorite HTML source editor does not show line numbers or you don't know how
to view them.
There's no harm in
mentioning useful products like nsgmls and Debian-- then people can
find out more about them if they're interested.
There is a lot of harm caused by names dropping, especially when not
accompanied with simple English explanation of what the names refer to. It's
absurd to get interested in a name just because someone mentions it. Unless
that someone is your favorite guru, of course, but any disciple of yours
surely already knows Debian on a first-name basis and has nsgmls for
breakfast.

Yucca

Sep 7 '08 #20
In our last episode,
<32*******************@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi> ,
the lovely and talented Jukka K. Korpela
broadcast on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>Hm, what's complicated about typing "nsgml -s foo.html"
Using command-line interface is complicated to most people. Using command
names that consist of consonants only makes it even stranger.
Perhaps "most people" shouldn't be attempting html.
>and reading the error messages?
Most people don't know how to read error messages, especially when the
messages are cryptic. The W3C validator and the WDG validator are familiar
to most people who care about validation, so why not use them?
See above.
>I'm assuming here that imstallation is easy
Your assumption fails for the great majority of prospective HTML authors.
Besides, any installation is potentially complicated and risky, so you need
a _good_ reason.
If typing make clean && make install is beyond someone's powers, perhaps
that someone should see above.
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/us****@larseighner.com
My last cow just died, so I won't need your bull anymore.
Sep 7 '08 #21
Fri, 5 Sep 2008 19:35:48 +0200 (CEST), /Michael Stemper/:
Just last night, it took me two hours to track down some funny behavior. It
turned out to be caused by entries in a definition list that looked like:
<dt>Term<dt>
<dd>Definition</dd>

Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?
You could use XHTML for authoring then use an identity-copy XSL
transformation which outputs the source as HTML prior publishing it.
You could further benefit from employing XSLT as template facility.

--
Stanimir
Sep 10 '08 #22

"Michael Stemper" <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote in message
news:g9**********@aioe.org...
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.
Try our product, CSE HTML Validator. I think it is exactly what you are
looking for and it's very easy to use.
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/

Also see:
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval...eisbetter.html

I hope this helps.

--
Albert Wiersch
Sep 12 '08 #23
In article <0o*******************@en-nntp-01.dc1.easynews.com>,
"Albert Wiersch" <no****@nospam.comwrote:
"Michael Stemper" <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote in message
news:g9**********@aioe.org...
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Try our product, CSE HTML Validator. I think it is exactly what you are
looking for and it's very easy to use.
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/

Also see:
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval...eisbetter.html

I hope this helps.
Uh oh! Cue for you guys to pile in...

--
dorayme
Sep 12 '08 #24
In our last episode,
<do**********************************@web.aioe.org >,
the lovely and talented dorayme
broadcast on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
In article <0o*******************@en-nntp-01.dc1.easynews.com>,
"Albert Wiersch" <no****@nospam.comwrote:
>"Michael Stemper" <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote in message
news:g9**********@aioe.org...
The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Try our product, CSE HTML Validator. I think it is exactly what you are
looking for and it's very easy to use.
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/

Also see:
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval...eisbetter.html

I hope this helps.
Uh oh! Cue for you guys to pile in...
Naw. I pass on the easy ones.

--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/us****@larseighner.com
Consider what might be fertilizing the greener grass across the fence.
Sep 12 '08 #25
Albert Wiersch wrote:
Try our product,
Quite some marketing strategy you have - selling fake products in a
discussion groups where experts regularly reveal your lies.
Sep 12 '08 #26
In article <sl********************@debranded.larseighner.com> , Lars Eighner <us****@larseighner.comwrites:
>In our last episode, <g9**********@aioe.org>, the lovely and talented Michael Stemper broadcast on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
>The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Install nsgmls from James Clark's SP or the OpenSp package.
Where would I find such a thing, and would I need to have a compiler?
>You can use to Tidy to add closing tags,
Nope, I don't want anything other than my keyboard adding anythin.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If this is our corporate opinion, you will be billed for it.
Sep 12 '08 #27
In article <M7*******************@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi> , "Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrites:
>Lars Eighner wrote:
>I never figured out how to stream the document in my editor through
W3C and send the errors to another buffer in the editor. Installing
an SP package is much simpler and easier.

It may suit your needs, but for an ordinary HTML author, that's
unnecessarily complicated. For all that we can know, he might even lack the
privileges required for installing any software in the computer he uses (at
work).
Web pages aren't my job; they're just a hobby.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If this is our corporate opinion, you will be billed for it.
Sep 12 '08 #28
In article <sl*********************@bowser.marioworld>, Ben C <sp******@spam.eggswrites:
>On 2008-09-07, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
>Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>and reading the error messages?

Most people don't know how to read error messages, especially when the
messages are cryptic. The W3C validator and the WDG validator are familiar
to most people who care about validation, so why not use them?

It's a lot more annoying having to go through a website, and then after
validating you have to match up the errors to your sources manually and
then resubmit.
Being able to do my validation locally instead of having to fire up
the modem would be a benfit.
>Much better to have a program that you can use from your editor
? Run a program from my editor? You mean like:

:!pgmname

Why couldn't I run it in a different window?
>>I'm assuming here that imstallation is easy
>>-- on a Debian system

Who's Debian and why should we know him or her? (I know what Debian is, but
most people don't.)

That may be true but why keep people in the dark? There's no harm in
mentioning useful products like nsgmls and Debian--
What about DOS? Is there a DOS distribution available? I don't have
any compilers.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If this is our corporate opinion, you will be billed for it.
Sep 12 '08 #29
In article <sl*********************@bowser.marioworld>, Ben C <sp******@spam.eggswrites:
>On 2008-09-06, Peter J Ross <pj*@example.invalidwrote:
>>Is there a tool available someplace that will flag failure to explictly
terminate elements that aren't required by the standard to be explicitly
terminated?

There is now: http://www.tidraso.co.uk/code/checkUnclosed.py.gz
Looks sweet. Unfortunately, I'm on DOS and don't have a python shell
available to me.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If this is our corporate opinion, you will be billed for it.
Sep 12 '08 #30
On 2008-09-12, Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote:
In article <sl********************@debranded.larseighner.com> , Lars Eighner <us****@larseighner.comwrites:
>>In our last episode, <g9**********@aioe.org>, the lovely and talented Michael Stemper broadcast on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
>>The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Install nsgmls from James Clark's SP or the OpenSp package.

Where would I find such a thing, and would I need to have a compiler?
If you're using SUSE Linux, just install the package called
w3c-markup-validator, and everything else it says it needs. No compiling
required.
Sep 12 '08 #31
In our last episode, <ga**********@aioe.org>, the lovely and talented
Michael Stemper broadcast on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
In article <sl********************@debranded.larseighner.com> , Lars Eighner <us****@larseighner.comwrites:
>>In our last episode, <g9**********@aioe.org>, the lovely and talented Michael Stemper broadcast on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
>>The W3C Validator is a great help, as far as it goes. However, I'm looking
for something stricter. My coding style does not allow for implicit
termination of an element; my intention and desire is to explicitly
terminate every element.

Install nsgmls from James Clark's SP or the OpenSp package.
Where would I find such a thing, and would I need to have a compiler?
<http://www.jclark.com/sp/>

I forget that compilers aren't standard equipment on all systems. It
is written in c++. It does compile on gcc, and is said to compile on
Sun C++, and visual C++ 6.0. There seem to be a number of older windows and
DOS binaries --- one of which might work with newer systems (as this is
basically a command line program, I'd try running the MS-DOS binary in a DOS
window first.
>>You can use to Tidy to add closing tags,
Nope, I don't want anything other than my keyboard adding anythin.
Tidy is a pain and for sure in the better-than-nothing class; I don't know
how I can make this endorsement more lukewarm. If you poke around freeward
sites for your system, you might find an HTML lint which might be convinced
by a pack of lies to serve your narrow purpose (i.e. tell its config that
tags are required --- it won't parse by the DTD and so won't know you are
lying).

After running dual boot for a dozen years I realized I had not booted to
Windows in more that two years and deleted my Windows partition, or I would
try some of the binaries out.

--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/us****@larseighner.com
War on Terrorism: Bad News from the Sanity Front
"In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to ...
torture." --Jonathan Alter,_Newsweek_
Sep 12 '08 #32
On 2008-09-12, Michael Stemper <ms******@walkabout.empros.comwrote:
In article <sl*********************@bowser.marioworld>, Ben C <sp******@spam.eggswrites:
>>On 2008-09-07, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
>>Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>>and reading the error messages?

Most people don't know how to read error messages, especially when the
messages are cryptic. The W3C validator and the WDG validator are familiar
to most people who care about validation, so why not use them?

It's a lot more annoying having to go through a website, and then after
validating you have to match up the errors to your sources manually and
then resubmit.

Being able to do my validation locally instead of having to fire up
the modem would be a benfit.
>>Much better to have a program that you can use from your editor

? Run a program from my editor? You mean like:

:!pgmname
Yes, you could do that. OK if there are only a couple of errors. But
with a bit more effort you can get the errors to go into your "quickfix"
list.

That means you can get the editor to show the error message and then
jump to the right line in the file it's in when you press return-- the
kind of thing you usually use for compiling programs.
Why couldn't I run it in a different window?
You can run it where you like.

[...]
What about DOS? Is there a DOS distribution available? I don't have
any compilers.
I doubt it, and even if you did, getting a modern GNU C program to build
under DOS wouldn't be easy.
Sep 12 '08 #33

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote in message
news:IF*******************@reader1.news.saunalahti .fi...
>
Quite some marketing strategy you have - selling fake products in a
discussion groups where experts regularly reveal your lies.
The "experts" are often wrong. Something I've noticed a lot lately. :-)

My recommendation is that you let people decide for themselves and give them
the facts. Yes, it is true that CSE HTML Validator's own validator engine is
not a DTD based validator, but that's more often than not a GOOD THING. You,
as an "expert" should well know the limitations of DTD based validators and
that real web browsers don't even use SGML parsers. And, you should also
know, because I have stated it many times, if DTD validation is what you
want, then CSE HTML Validator Std/Pro has that too.

This page has some good examples about the limitations of using DTD based
validators:
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval...eisbetter.html

And CSE HTML Validator can do what the original poster requested with the
click of one checkbox to require all optional end tags.

Albert Wiersch
Sep 12 '08 #34
Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:30:44 -0500 from Albert Wiersch
<no****@nospam.com>:
Try our product, CSE HTML Validator.
Oh boy, here we go again.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you
Sep 13 '08 #35
Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:32:24 +0200 (CEST) from Michael Stemper
<ms******@walkabout.empros.com>:
In article <sl********************@debranded.larseighner.com> ,
Lars Eighner <us****@larseighner.comwrites:
Install nsgmls from James Clark's SP or the OpenSp package.

Where would I find such a thing,
Gee, if only there were some sort of search engine where you could
type in an unusual term like "nsgmls" and it would find relevant Web
pages.
and would I need to have a compiler?
No.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you
Sep 13 '08 #36
Stan Brown wrote:
Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:30:44 -0500 from Albert Wiersch
<no****@nospam.com>:
>Try our product, CSE HTML Validator.

Oh boy, here we go again.
If I remember correctly, this spammer has changed the announced email
address, so there is _some_ change. I guess he just won't see the irony of
using a (probably fake - it fits!) email address with "nospam" twice in it
when spamming.

(Of course, the "CSE HTML Validator" salesman is not a spammer in the
technical sense e.g. as defined by the Breitbart index but surely a spammer
in the real-life sense, an indiscrete advertizer who abuses discussion
groups for the mere purpose of selling a product.)

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Sep 13 '08 #37

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote in message
news:i4*******************@reader1.news.saunalahti .fi...
>
If I remember correctly, this spammer has changed the announced email
address, so there is _some_ change. I guess he just won't see the irony of
using a (probably fake - it fits!) email address with "nospam" twice in it
when spamming.
Yes, obviously the email address is not my real email address.

Anyone who wants to email me can do so here:
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval/webemailform.php
(Of course, the "CSE HTML Validator" salesman is not a spammer in the
technical sense e.g. as defined by the Breitbart index but surely a
spammer in the real-life sense, an indiscrete advertizer who abuses
discussion groups for the mere purpose of selling a product.)
Actually, just trying to provide a USEFUL recommendation to the original
poster and letting people know the facts about DTD validator limitations and
why it is not as useful as one may be lead to believe by the "experts" in
the group.

If CSE HTML Validator happens to be useful and beneficial to someone, then
great! If not, no problem. It's still nice to be able to inform people that
DTD validation has its limitations (and pretty significant ones at that when
compared to certain other tools).

Albert Wiersch
Sep 13 '08 #38
In our last episode, <Px*******************@en-nntp-09.dc1.easynews.com>,
the lovely and talented Albert Wiersch broadcast on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
Actually, just trying to provide a USEFUL recommendation to the original
No, you aren't. You are trying to sell your fraudulent junk.
poster and letting people know the facts about DTD validator limitations
The DTD is the only standard. Anything that does not validate against a DTD
is no a validator. You are profiteering fraud, as has been established many
times.
Albert Wiersch <== Liar, fraud, thief

--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/us****@larseighner.com
An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
Sep 13 '08 #39

"Lars Eighner" <us****@larseighner.comwrote in message
news:sl********************@debranded.larseighner. com...
>
No, you aren't. You are trying to sell your fraudulent junk.
Sorry, no. I don't might pointing out where a product (any product, not just
ours) might fit someone's needs and it is certainly not "fraudulent junk".
The DTD is the only standard. Anything that does not validate against a
DTD
is no a validator. You are profiteering fraud, as has been established
many
times.
Been over this before and I'll say it again, no, it is not fraud. Your
chosen definition of validator is not the only definition in the world. I
recommend that you stop misleading people.

Albert Wiersch
Sep 13 '08 #40
On 2008-09-13, Albert Wiersch <no****@nospam.comwrote:
>
"Lars Eighner" <us****@larseighner.comwrote in message
news:sl********************@debranded.larseighner. com...
>>
No, you aren't. You are trying to sell your fraudulent junk.

Sorry, no. I don't might pointing out where a product (any product, not just
ours) might fit someone's needs and it is certainly not "fraudulent junk".
When have you ever pointed out a product that wasn't yours?
>The DTD is the only standard. Anything that does not validate against a
DTD
is no a validator. You are profiteering fraud, as has been established
many
times.

Been over this before and I'll say it again, no, it is not fraud. Your
chosen definition of validator is not the only definition in the world.
Evidently neither is your chosen definition of fraudulent junk.
Sep 13 '08 #41
Albert Wiersch:
Your chosen definition of validator is not the only definition in the world.
"The question is" said Albert Wiersch, "which is to be master - that's
all".

--
Jock
Sep 13 '08 #42
Albert Wiersch:
Anyone who wants to email me can do so here:http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval/webemailform.php
Not anyone. I don't see any e-mail address in Lynx; I see only "image
of email address".

Does the "validator" not pick that up?

--
Jock
Sep 13 '08 #43

"Ben C" <sp******@spam.eggswrote in message
news:sl*********************@bowser.marioworld...
>
When have you ever pointed out a product that wasn't yours?
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval/resources.html
Evidently neither is your chosen definition of fraudulent junk.
I accept more than one definition because more than one definition is
commonly used (just Google it). I just don't assume that there can be one
and only one definition. That would be ignoring reality. :-)

Albert Wiersch
Sep 13 '08 #44
In article <sl********************@debranded.larseighner.com> ,
Lars Eighner <us****@larseighner.comwrote:
In our last episode, <Px*******************@en-nntp-09.dc1.easynews.com>,
the lovely and talented Albert Wiersch broadcast on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:
Actually, just trying to provide a USEFUL recommendation to the original

No, you aren't. You are trying to sell your fraudulent junk.
Could it be that the truth lies somewhere in between? In other words,
that Albert is keen to sell but also targets those whom he genuinely
believes would benefit from his product? Perhaps earthlings are a bit
more complicated than you know about...
poster and letting people know the facts about DTD validator limitations

The DTD is the only standard. Anything that does not validate against a DTD
is no a validator. You are profiteering fraud, as has been established many
times.
Albert Wiersch <== Liar, fraud, thief
This is totally over the top and you should apologise to him, Lars!
Albert is not a fraud and he tries pretty hard to be as up front as
possible, he does pretty well considering the defamation of his
character. He reacts and responds in a gentlemanly way and considering
the insults, I am surprised he has conceded so much.

He has learnt and grown like anyone exposed to intelligent criticism.
One of the best, btw, was that his product could engender a false sense
of security, but he has addressed this to some extent. You should
moderate your language and be fairer.

--
dorayme
Sep 13 '08 #45

"John Dunlop" <jo**@dunlop.namewrote in message
news:74**********************************@f63g2000 hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
Not anyone. I don't see any e-mail address in Lynx; I see only "image
of email address".

Does the "validator" not pick that up?
Did you not see the contact form? It's there and it works fine for me in
Lynx.

I hope this helps.

Albert Wiersch
Sep 13 '08 #46
me


"Albert Wiersch" <no****@nospam.comwrote:
>"Ben C" <sp******@spam.eggswrote in message
>On 2008-09-13, Albert Wiersch <no****@nospam.comwrote:
"Lars Eighner" <us****@larseighner.comwrote in message
the lovely and talented Albert Wiersch broadcast

Actually, just trying to provide a USEFUL recommendation

No, you aren't. You are trying to sell your fraudulent junk.

Sorry, no. I don't might pointing out where a product (any
product, not just ours) might fit someone's needs

When have you ever pointed out a product that wasn't yours?

http://www.htmlvalidator.com/htmlval/resources.html
When have you ever IN A NEWSGROUP POST pointed out a product
that wasn't yours?

Sep 14 '08 #47
Albert Wiersch:
Did you not see the contact form? It's there and it works fine for me in
Lynx.
Yes, but if I use the contact form, I can't use my mail user-agent to
compose my e-mail or keep a copy of the e-mail I send.

--
Jock
Sep 14 '08 #48
Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:07:20 -0700 (PDT) from John Dunlop
<jo**@dunlop.name>:
Albert Wiersch:
Your chosen definition of validator is not the only definition in the world.

"The question is" said Albert Wiersch, "which is to be master - that's
all".
And:

'When *I* use a word', said Albert Wiersch, 'it means what I choose
it to mean.'

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you
Sep 14 '08 #49

<me@privacy.netwrote in message
news:xe*********************@giganews.com...
>
When have you ever IN A NEWSGROUP POST pointed out a product
that wasn't yours?
First, this is a silly discussion. Second, I don't keep a record of every
newsgroup post I've made, but I have definitely recommended other products
whenever I thought it would be helpful and appropriate. I'm not going to
"entertain" this discussion any further. :-)

Albert
Sep 14 '08 #50

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