xmllint

Name

xmllint — command line XML tool

Synopsis

xmllint [ --version | --debug | --quiet | --shell | --xpath "XPath_expression" | --copy | --recover | --huge | --nocompact | --nodefdtd | --nodict | --noenc | --noent | --nofixup-base-uris | --noout | --nonet | --path "PATH(S)" | --load-trace | --valid | --postvalid | --dtdvalid URL | --dtdvalidfpi FPI | --timing | --output FILE | --repeat | --insert | --strict-namespace | --compress | --html | --xmlout | --push | --memory | --max-ampl INTEGER | --maxmem NBBYTES | --nowarning | --noblanks | --nocdata | --format | --pretty INTEGER | --encode ENCODING | --dropdtd | --nsclean | --catalogs | --nocatalogs | --auto | --xinclude | --noxincludenode | --loaddtd | --dtdattr | --stream | --walker | --pattern PATTERNVALUE | --relaxng SCHEMA | --schema SCHEMA | --schematron SCHEMA | --c14n | --c14n11 | --exc-c14n | --pedantic | --sax | --sax1 | --oldxml10 ] { XML-FILE(S)... | - }

DESCRIPTION

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 is part of the libxml2 library.

VALIDATION OPTIONS

Options enabling validation.

--dtdvalid URL: Use the DTD specified by an URL for validation.
--dtdvalidfpi FPI: Use the DTD specified by a Formal Public Identifier FPI for validation, note that this will require a catalog exporting that Formal Public Identifier to work.
--relaxng SCHEMA: Use RelaxNG file named SCHEMA for validation.
--schema SCHEMA: Use a W3C XML Schema file named SCHEMA for validation.
--schematron SCHEMA: Use a Schematron file named SCHEMA for validation.
--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.
--strict-namespace: Return an error if the document is well-formed, but has namespace errors. This enforces namespace-well-formedness.

PARSER OPTIONS

The following options set the respective parser options.

--dtdattr: Fetch external DTD and populate the tree with inherited attributes. Implies --loaddtd.
--huge: Ignore some hardcoded parser limits.
--loaddtd: Fetch an external DTD and external parameter entities.
--max-ampl INTEGER: Set the maximum amplification factor which protects against exponential entity expansion ("billion laughs"). The default value is 5. Documents making heavy use of entity expansion may require a higher value.
--noblanks: Drop "ignorable" blank spaces. This option is unreliable and shouldn't be used.
--nocatalogs: Do not use any catalogs.
--nocdata: Substitute CDATA section by equivalent text nodes.
--nodefdtd: Do not set default HTML doctype (parser option HTML_PARSE_NODEFDTD).
--noenc: Ignore encoding declaration (parser option XML_PARSE_IGNORE_ENC).
--noent: Substitute entity values for entity references. By default, xmllint leaves entity references in place. This enables loading of external DTDs and entities.
--nofixup-base-uris: Don't fix xml:base URIs when processing XIncludes (parser option XML_PARSE_NOBASEFIX).
--nonet: Do not use the Internet to fetch DTDs or entities. Has no effect with libxml2 2.15 or later.
--nowarning: Do not emit warnings from the parser and/or validator.
--nsclean: Remove redundant namespace declarations.
--oldxml10: Use deprecated parsing rules before XML 1.0, 5th edition.
--pedantic: Enable additional warnings.
--recover: Output any parsable portions of an invalid document. Exact behavior is unspecified. Use of this option is discouraged.
--xinclude: Do XInclude processing.

MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS

Options that don't fall in another category.

--catalogs: Use the SGML catalog(s) from SGML_CATALOG_FILES. XML catalogs are loaded by default.
--dropdtd: Remove DTD after parsing.
--html: Use the HTML parser.
--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.
--quiet: Don't print informational messages to stderr.
--sax: Print SAX callbacks for debugging. Can be used for streaming DTD and Schema validation when used with --noout.
--shell: Run a navigating shell. Details on available commands in shell mode are below (see the section called “SHELL COMMANDS”).
--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.
--version: Display the version of libxml2 used.

OUTPUT OPTIONS

Options controlling output. Except for --noout these have no effect in SAX or stream mode.

--compress

Turn on gzip(1) compression of output.

--c14n, --c14n11, --exc-c14n

Use the W3C XML Canonicalisation (C14N) to serialize the result of parsing to stdout. It keeps comments in the result.

--encode ENCODING

Output in the given encoding. Note that this works for full document not fragments or result from XPath queries.

--format

Reformat and reindent the output. The XMLLINT_INDENT environment variable controls the indentation. The default value is two spaces " ").

Especially in the absence of a DTD, this feature has never worked reliably and is fundamentally broken.

--noout

Suppress output. By default, xmllint outputs the result tree.

--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.

--pretty INTEGER

Value 0 means no formatting, 1 means XML_SAVE_FORMAT (same as --format), 2 means XML_SAVE_WSNONSIG.

--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.

DEBUG OPTIONS

The following options can be used to debug the libxml2 library. Behavior of these options may change without notice.

--auto: Generate a small document for testing purposes.
--copy: Test the internal copy implementation.
--debug: Parse a file and output an annotated tree of the in-memory version of the document.
--insert: Test for valid insertions. DEPRECATED: This feature will be removed.
--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.
--nocompact: Do not generate compact text nodes (parser option XML_PARSE_COMPACT). Only for debugging.
--nodict: Don't use dictionaries (parser option XML_PARSE_NODICT). Only for debugging.
--noxincludenode: Do XInclude processing but do not generate XInclude start and end nodes.
--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 has completed.
--push: Use the push mode of the parser.
--repeat: Repeat 100 times, for timing or profiling.
--sax1: Use deprecated SAX1 interface (only for debugging).
--timing: Output information about the time it takes xmllint to perform the various steps.
--walker: 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 an existing in-memory tree. Used for debugging.
--xpath "XPath_expression": Run an XPath expression given as argument and print the result. In case of a nodeset result, each node in the node set is serialized in full in the output. In case of an empty node set the "XPath set is empty" result will be shown and exit code 11 will be returned..

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.
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: SGML catalog behavior can be changed by redirecting queries to the user's own set of catalogs. This can be done by setting the SGML_CATALOG_FILES environment variable to a list of catalogs. An empty one should deactivate loading the default catalog.
XML_CATALOG_FILES: XML 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 space-separated list of catalogs. Use percent-encoding to escape spaces or other characters. An empty variable should deactivate loading the default catalog.
XML_DEBUG_CATALOG: Setting the environment variable XML_DEBUG_CATALOG to non-zero using the export command outputs debugging information related to catalog operations.
XMLLINT_INDENT: Setting the environment variable XMLLINT_INDENT controls the indentation. The default value is two spaces " ".

DIAGNOSTICS

xmllint return codes provide information that can be used when calling it from scripts.

0: No error
1: Unclassified
2: Error in DTD
3: Validation error
4: Document isn't well-formed or couldn't be read
5: Error in schema compilation
6: Error writing output
7: Error in pattern (generated when --pattern option is used)
9: Out of memory error
10: XPath evaluation error
11: XPath result is empty