Re: Error count difference

Hello Martin,



On Sep 19, 2006, at 03:54 , Martin Côté wrote:
> I'm developing a script that uses the XML output of the validator to
> automatically check pages.

Which language is your script in? Just asking because there are a  
couple of libraries for perl and python (and Ruby too if I'm not  
mistaken) that could help you.



> Everything is working great except the error count.

That's indeed a bug, but I don't think we will be fixing it. The XML  
output has long been experimental, and will be replaced by a web  
service API which we've developed over the past year or so.

(as seen on the development instance of the validator)
http://qa-dev.w3.org/wmvs/HEAD/docs/api

The timeline will be:
release 0.7.3 (within a few weeks): the validator will include its  
new web service output, and the xml output will be deprecated

release 0.8.0 (later this year): the XML output will not be available  
any more.


Note that if you only need to know the number of errors for a  
validated document, you can use the HTTP header X-W3C-Validator- 
Errors present in all validation responses.

I would, in any case, advise against scraping the validator's output  
for results, as this is a fragile method.

And finally, of course, unless you are using a local installation of  
the validator, please be careful not to abused the shared resource,  
and get your scripts to sleep() between validation requests.

Thanks.
-- 
olivier