WDG HTML Validator Source Code

The WDG HTML Validator may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the GNU General Public License.

We encourage you to read the source code and send us any comments or suggestions by emailing liam@htmlhelp.com. Patches to add new features or fix bugs are greatly appreciated, and all contributors will be credited appropriately.

The WDG HTML Validator uses many third-party Perl modules and other programs in order to support a wide range of character encodings. This can make installing the Validator somewhat onerous. Packages are available for most Linux distributions.

See the Offline HTMLHelp.com Validator for a simpler alternative that features a command-line interface instead of CGI.

The source code release is composed of the following files:

validate.pl

This is the Perl CGI script that makes up the bulk of the WDG HTML Validator.

SpiderUA.pm

This Perl module provides the rules used by the spider when validating an entire site.

HTMLLinkExtractor.pm

This Perl module extracts possible HTML links from an HTML document when spidering a site.

Unicode::Map8 Add-ons

These add-ons to Perl's Unicode::Map8 module add support for various character encodings, including VISCII and TIS-620. The cp*.bin files are updated versions of some Microsoft encodings to which the euro character was added.

lq-nsgmls

This is the parser, written in C++, used by the Validator. lq-nsgmls is a modified version of the nsgmls program from the SP 1.3.4 package. You may optionally use nsgmls in place of lq-nsgmls. lq-nsgmls provides error messages tuned for HTML and also adds support for redirects and name-based virtual hosts when fetching DTDs.

Templates

The Validator also uses various templates.

Changes to the source are noted in the Change Log.

The WDG HTML Validator may be mirrored on other Web servers, including intranets. However, little effort has gone into making the Validator easy to install elsewhere since our focus is on creating a top-notch online validation service. If you would like to try installing the Validator, you will need the following:

• The WDG HTML Validator source files
• SGML catalog, DTDs, etc.
• Perl 5 and the following Perl modules available from CPAN:
  • CGI.pm
  • LWP 5.53_94 or higher
  • URI
  • Unicode::String
  • Unicode::Map8
  • I18N::Charset
  • Crypt::SSLeay (if you want HTTPS support)
• Ken Lunde's CJKVConv.pl and jconv.c