HTML::Lint(3p)

NAME
HTML::Lint - check for HTML errors in a string or file

VERSION
Version 2.06

SYNOPSIS
    my $lint = HTML::Lint->new;
    $lint->only_types( HTML::Lint::STRUCTURE );

    $lint->parse( $data );
    $lint->parse_file( $filename );

    my $error_count = $lint->errors;

    foreach my $error ( $lint->errors ) {
        print $error->as_string, "\n";
    }

HTML::Lint also comes with a wrapper program called weblint that handles linting from the command line:

    $ weblint http://www.cnn.com/
    http://www.cnn.com/ (395:83) <IMG SRC="spacer.gif"> tag has no HEIGHT and WIDTH attributes.
    http://www.cnn.com/ (395:83) <IMG SRC="goofus.gif"> does not have ALT text defined
    http://www.cnn.com/ (396:217) Unknown element <nobr>
    http://www.cnn.com/ (396:241) </nobr> with no opening <nobr>
    http://www.cnn.com/ (842:7) target attribute in <a> is repeated

And finally, you can also get Apache::HTML::Lint that passes any mod_perl-generated code through HTML::Lint and get it dumped into your Apache error_log.

    [Mon Jun  3 14:03:31 2002] [warn] /foo.pl (1:45) </p> with no opening <p>
    [Mon Jun  3 14:03:31 2002] [warn] /foo.pl (1:49) Unknown element <gronk>
    [Mon Jun  3 14:03:31 2002] [warn] /foo.pl (1:56) Unknown attribute "x" for tag <table>

METHODS
NOTE: Some of these methods mirror HTML::Parser's methods, but HTML::Lint is not a subclass of HTML::Parser.

  new()
Create an HTML::Lint object, which inherits from HTML::Parser. You may pass the types of errors you want to check for in the "only_types" parm.

    my $lint = HTML::Lint->new( only_types => HTML::Lint::Error::STRUCTURE );

If you want more than one, you must pass an arrayref:

    my $lint = HTML::Lint->new(
        only_types => [HTML::Lint::Error::STRUCTURE, HTML::Lint::Error::FLUFF] );

  $lint->parse( $chunk )

  $lint->parse( $code_ref )
Passes in a chunk of HTML to be linted, either as a piece of text, or a code reference. See HTML::Parser's "parse_file" method for details.

  $lint->parse_file( $file )
Analyzes HTML directly from a file. The $file argument can be a filename, an open file handle, or a reference to an open file handle. See HTML::Parser's "parse_file" method for details.

  $lint->eof
Signals the end of a block of text getting passed in. This must be called to make sure that all parsing is complete before looking at errors.

Any parameters (and there shouldn't be any) are passed through to HTML::Parser's eof() method.

  $lint->errors()
In list context, "errors" returns all of the errors found in the parsed text. Each error is an object of the type HTML::Lint::Error.

In scalar context, it returns the number of errors found.

  $lint->clear_errors()
Clears the list of errors, in case you want to print and clear, print and clear.

  $lint->only_types( $type1[, $type2...] )
Specifies to only want errors of a certain type.

    $lint->only_types( HTML::Lint::Error::STRUCTURE );

Calling this without parameters makes the object return all possible errors.

The error types are "STRUCTURE", "HELPER" and "FLUFF". See HTML::Lint::Error for details on these types.

  $lint->gripe( $errcode, [$key1=>$val1, ...] )
Adds an error message, in the form of an HTML::Lint::Error object, to the list of error messages for the current object. The file, line and column are automatically passed to the HTML::Lint::Error constructor, as well as whatever other key value pairs are passed.

For example:

    $lint->gripe( 'attr-repeated', tag => $tag, attr => $attr );

Usually, the user of the object won't call this directly, but just in case, here you go.

  $lint->newfile( $filename )
Call "newfile()" whenever you switch to another file in a batch of linting. Otherwise, the object thinks everything is from the same file. Note that the list of errors is NOT cleared.

Note that $filename does NOT need to match what's put into parse() or parse_file(). It can be a description, a URL, or whatever.

HTML::Lint::Parser is a class only for this module.

BUGS, WISHES AND CORRESPONDENCE
All bugs and requests are now being handled through the Google Code issue tracker at http://code.google.com/p/html-lint/issues/list. DO NOT send bug reports to http://rt.cpan.org/

TODO

•   Check for attributes that require values

•   <TABLE>s that have no rows.

•   Form fields that aren't in a FORM

•   Check for valid entities, and that they end with semicolons

•   DIVs with nothing in them.

•   HEIGHT= that have percents in them.

•   Check for goofy stuff like:

        <b><li></b><b>Hello Reader - Spanish Level 1 (K-3)</b>

LICENSE
Copyright 2005-2008 Andy Lester, All Rights Reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Please note that these modules are not products of or supported by the employers of the various contributors to the code.

AUTHOR
Andy Lester, andy at petdance.com