xref: /freebsd/contrib/expat/doc/xmlwf.xml (revision 657729a89dd578d8cfc70d6616f5c65a48a8b33a)
1<!--
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6                        \___/_/\_\ .__/ \__,_|\__|
7                                 |_| XML parser
8
9   Copyright (c) 2001      Scott Bronson <bronson@rinspin.com>
10   Copyright (c) 2002-2003 Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@users.sourceforge.net>
11   Copyright (c) 2009      Karl Waclawek <karl@waclawek.net>
12   Copyright (c) 2016-2022 Sebastian Pipping <sebastian@pipping.org>
13   Copyright (c) 2016      Ardo van Rangelrooij <ardo@debian.org>
14   Copyright (c) 2017      Rhodri James <rhodri@wildebeest.org.uk>
15   Copyright (c) 2020      Joe Orton <jorton@redhat.com>
16   Copyright (c) 2021      Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
17   Unlike most of Expat,
18   this file is copyrighted under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.1.
19-->
20<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
21          "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
22  <!ENTITY dhfirstname "<firstname>Scott</firstname>">
23  <!ENTITY dhsurname   "<surname>Bronson</surname>">
24  <!ENTITY dhdate      "<date>October 25, 2022</date>">
25  <!-- Please adjust this^^ date whenever cutting a new release. -->
26  <!ENTITY dhsection   "<manvolnum>1</manvolnum>">
27  <!ENTITY dhemail     "<email>bronson@rinspin.com</email>">
28  <!ENTITY dhusername  "Scott Bronson">
29  <!ENTITY dhucpackage "<refentrytitle>XMLWF</refentrytitle>">
30  <!ENTITY dhpackage   "xmlwf">
31
32  <!ENTITY debian      "<productname>Debian GNU/Linux</productname>">
33  <!ENTITY gnu         "<acronym>GNU</acronym>">
34]>
35
36<refentry>
37  <refentryinfo>
38    <address>
39      &dhemail;
40    </address>
41    <author>
42      &dhfirstname;
43      &dhsurname;
44    </author>
45    <copyright>
46      <year>2001</year>
47      <holder>&dhusername;</holder>
48    </copyright>
49    &dhdate;
50  </refentryinfo>
51  <refmeta>
52    &dhucpackage;
53
54    &dhsection;
55  </refmeta>
56  <refnamediv>
57    <refname>&dhpackage;</refname>
58
59    <refpurpose>Determines if an XML document is well-formed</refpurpose>
60  </refnamediv>
61  <refsynopsisdiv>
62    <cmdsynopsis>
63      <command>&dhpackage;</command>
64      <arg><replaceable>OPTIONS</replaceable></arg>
65      <arg><replaceable>FILE</replaceable> ...</arg>
66    </cmdsynopsis>
67    <cmdsynopsis>
68      <command>&dhpackage;</command>
69      <arg choice="plain"><option>-h</option></arg>
70    </cmdsynopsis>
71    <cmdsynopsis>
72      <command>&dhpackage;</command>
73      <arg choice="plain"><option>-v</option></arg>
74    </cmdsynopsis>
75  </refsynopsisdiv>
76
77  <refsect1>
78    <title>DESCRIPTION</title>
79
80    <para>
81	<command>&dhpackage;</command> uses the Expat library to
82	determine if an XML document is well-formed.  It is
83	non-validating.
84	</para>
85
86	<para>
87	If you do not specify any files on the command-line, and you
88	have a recent version of <command>&dhpackage;</command>, the
89	input file will be read from standard input.
90	</para>
91
92  </refsect1>
93
94  <refsect1>
95    <title>WELL-FORMED DOCUMENTS</title>
96
97	<para>
98	  A well-formed document must adhere to the
99	  following rules:
100	</para>
101
102	<itemizedlist>
103      <listitem><para>
104	    The file begins with an XML declaration.  For instance,
105		<literal>&lt;?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?&gt;</literal>.
106		<emphasis>NOTE</emphasis>:
107		<command>&dhpackage;</command> does not currently
108		check for a valid XML declaration.
109      </para></listitem>
110      <listitem><para>
111		Every start tag is either empty (&lt;tag/&gt;)
112		or has a corresponding end tag.
113      </para></listitem>
114      <listitem><para>
115	    There is exactly one root element.  This element must contain
116		all other elements in the document.  Only comments, white
117		space, and processing instructions may come after the close
118		of the root element.
119      </para></listitem>
120      <listitem><para>
121		All elements nest properly.
122      </para></listitem>
123      <listitem><para>
124		All attribute values are enclosed in quotes (either single
125		or double).
126      </para></listitem>
127    </itemizedlist>
128
129	<para>
130	  If the document has a DTD, and it strictly complies with that
131	  DTD, then the document is also considered <emphasis>valid</emphasis>.
132	  <command>&dhpackage;</command> is a non-validating parser --
133	  it does not check the DTD.  However, it does support
134	  external entities (see the <option>-x</option> option).
135	</para>
136  </refsect1>
137
138  <refsect1>
139    <title>OPTIONS</title>
140
141<para>
142When an option includes an argument, you may specify the argument either
143separately ("<option>-d</option> <replaceable>output</replaceable>") or concatenated with the
144option ("<option>-d</option><replaceable>output</replaceable>").  <command>&dhpackage;</command>
145supports both.
146</para>
147
148    <variablelist>
149
150      <varlistentry>
151        <term><option>-a</option> <replaceable>factor</replaceable></term>
152        <listitem>
153          <para>
154            Sets the maximum tolerated amplification factor
155            for protection against billion laughs attacks (default: 100.0).
156            The amplification factor is calculated as ..
157          </para>
158          <literallayout>
159            amplification := (direct + indirect) / direct
160          </literallayout>
161          <para>
162            .. while parsing, whereas
163            &lt;direct&gt; is the number of bytes read
164              from the primary document in parsing and
165            &lt;indirect&gt; is the number of bytes
166              added by expanding entities and reading of external DTD files,
167              combined.
168          </para>
169          <para>
170            <emphasis>NOTE</emphasis>:
171            If you ever need to increase this value for non-attack payload,
172            please file a bug report.
173          </para>
174        </listitem>
175      </varlistentry>
176
177      <varlistentry>
178        <term><option>-b</option> <replaceable>bytes</replaceable></term>
179        <listitem>
180          <para>
181            Sets the number of output bytes (including amplification)
182            needed to activate protection against billion laughs attacks
183            (default: 8 MiB).
184            This can be thought of as an &quot;activation threshold&quot;.
185          </para>
186          <para>
187            <emphasis>NOTE</emphasis>:
188            If you ever need to increase this value for non-attack payload,
189            please file a bug report.
190          </para>
191        </listitem>
192      </varlistentry>
193
194      <varlistentry>
195        <term><option>-c</option></term>
196        <listitem>
197		<para>
198  If the input file is well-formed and <command>&dhpackage;</command>
199  doesn't encounter any errors, the input file is simply copied to
200  the output directory unchanged.
201  This implies no namespaces (turns off <option>-n</option>) and
202  requires <option>-d</option> to specify an output directory.
203  		</para>
204        </listitem>
205      </varlistentry>
206
207      <varlistentry>
208        <term><option>-d</option> <replaceable>output-dir</replaceable></term>
209        <listitem>
210		<para>
211  Specifies a directory to contain transformed
212  representations of the input files.
213  By default, <option>-d</option> outputs a canonical representation
214  (described below).
215  You can select different output formats using <option>-c</option>,
216  <option>-m</option> and <option>-N</option>.
217	  </para>
218	  <para>
219  The output filenames will
220  be exactly the same as the input filenames or "STDIN" if the input is
221  coming from standard input.  Therefore, you must be careful that the
222  output file does not go into the same directory as the input
223  file.  Otherwise, <command>&dhpackage;</command> will delete the
224  input file before it generates the output file (just like running
225  <literal>cat &lt; file &gt; file</literal> in most shells).
226	  </para>
227	  <para>
228  Two structurally equivalent XML documents have a byte-for-byte
229  identical canonical XML representation.
230  Note that ignorable white space is considered significant and
231  is treated equivalently to data.
232  More on canonical XML can be found at
233  http://www.jclark.com/xml/canonxml.html .
234	  </para>
235        </listitem>
236      </varlistentry>
237
238      <varlistentry>
239        <term><option>-e</option> <replaceable>encoding</replaceable></term>
240        <listitem>
241		<para>
242   Specifies the character encoding for the document, overriding
243   any document encoding declaration.  <command>&dhpackage;</command>
244   supports four built-in encodings:
245   	<literal>US-ASCII</literal>,
246	<literal>UTF-8</literal>,
247	<literal>UTF-16</literal>, and
248	<literal>ISO-8859-1</literal>.
249   Also see the <option>-w</option> option.
250	   </para>
251        </listitem>
252      </varlistentry>
253
254      <varlistentry>
255        <term><option>-k</option></term>
256        <listitem>
257          <para>
258            When processing multiple files, <command>&dhpackage;</command>
259            by default halts after the the first file with an error.
260            This tells <command>&dhpackage;</command> to report the error
261            but to keep processing.
262            This can be useful, for example, when testing a filter that converts
263            many files to XML and you want to quickly find out which conversions
264            failed.
265          </para>
266        </listitem>
267      </varlistentry>
268
269      <varlistentry>
270        <term><option>-m</option></term>
271        <listitem>
272		<para>
273  Outputs some strange sort of XML file that completely
274  describes the input file, including character positions.
275  Requires <option>-d</option> to specify an output file.
276	   </para>
277        </listitem>
278      </varlistentry>
279
280      <varlistentry>
281        <term><option>-n</option></term>
282        <listitem>
283		<para>
284  Turns on namespace processing.  (describe namespaces)
285  <option>-c</option> disables namespaces.
286	   </para>
287        </listitem>
288      </varlistentry>
289
290      <varlistentry>
291        <term><option>-N</option></term>
292        <listitem>
293          <para>
294  Adds a doctype and notation declarations to canonical XML output.
295  This matches the example output used by the formal XML test cases.
296  Requires <option>-d</option> to specify an output file.
297          </para>
298        </listitem>
299      </varlistentry>
300
301      <varlistentry>
302        <term><option>-p</option></term>
303        <listitem>
304		<para>
305    Tells <command>&dhpackage;</command> to process external DTDs and parameter
306    entities.
307	 </para>
308	 <para>
309   Normally <command>&dhpackage;</command> never parses parameter
310   entities.  <option>-p</option> tells it to always parse them.
311   <option>-p</option> implies <option>-x</option>.
312	   </para>
313        </listitem>
314      </varlistentry>
315
316      <varlistentry>
317        <term><option>-r</option></term>
318        <listitem>
319		<para>
320   Normally <command>&dhpackage;</command> memory-maps the XML file
321   before parsing; this can result in faster parsing on many
322   platforms.
323   <option>-r</option> turns off memory-mapping and uses normal file
324   IO calls instead.
325   Of course, memory-mapping is automatically turned off
326   when reading from standard input.
327	   </para>
328		<para>
329   Use of memory-mapping can cause some platforms to report
330   substantially higher memory usage for
331   <command>&dhpackage;</command>, but this appears to be a matter of
332   the operating system reporting memory in a strange way; there is
333   not a leak in <command>&dhpackage;</command>.
334           </para>
335        </listitem>
336      </varlistentry>
337
338      <varlistentry>
339        <term><option>-s</option></term>
340        <listitem>
341		<para>
342  Prints an error if the document is not standalone.
343  A document is standalone if it has no external subset and no
344  references to parameter entities.
345	   </para>
346        </listitem>
347      </varlistentry>
348
349      <varlistentry>
350        <term><option>-t</option></term>
351        <listitem>
352		<para>
353  Turns on timings.  This tells Expat to parse the entire file,
354  but not perform any processing.
355  This gives a fairly accurate idea of the raw speed of Expat itself
356  without client overhead.
357  <option>-t</option> turns off most of the output options
358  (<option>-d</option>, <option>-m</option>, <option>-c</option>, ...).
359	   </para>
360        </listitem>
361      </varlistentry>
362
363      <varlistentry>
364        <term><option>-v</option></term>
365        <listitem>
366		<para>
367  Prints the version of the Expat library being used, including some
368  information on the compile-time configuration of the library, and
369  then exits.
370	   </para>
371        </listitem>
372      </varlistentry>
373
374      <varlistentry>
375        <term><option>-w</option></term>
376        <listitem>
377		<para>
378  Enables support for Windows code pages.
379  Normally, <command>&dhpackage;</command> will throw an error if it
380  runs across an encoding that it is not equipped to handle itself.  With
381  <option>-w</option>, <command>&dhpackage;</command> will try to use a Windows code
382  page.  See also <option>-e</option>.
383	   </para>
384        </listitem>
385      </varlistentry>
386
387      <varlistentry>
388        <term><option>-x</option></term>
389        <listitem>
390		<para>
391  Turns on parsing external entities.
392  </para>
393<para>
394  Non-validating parsers are not required to resolve external
395  entities, or even expand entities at all.
396  Expat always expands internal entities (?),
397  but external entity parsing must be enabled explicitly.
398  </para>
399  <para>
400  External entities are simply entities that obtain their
401  data from outside the XML file currently being parsed.
402  </para>
403  <para>
404  This is an example of an internal entity:
405<literallayout>
406&lt;!ENTITY vers '1.0.2'&gt;
407</literallayout>
408  </para>
409  <para>
410  And here are some examples of external entities:
411
412<literallayout>
413&lt;!ENTITY header SYSTEM "header-&amp;vers;.xml"&gt;  (parsed)
414&lt;!ENTITY logo SYSTEM "logo.png" PNG&gt;         (unparsed)
415</literallayout>
416
417	   </para>
418        </listitem>
419      </varlistentry>
420
421      <varlistentry>
422        <term><option>--</option></term>
423        <listitem>
424		<para>
425    (Two hyphens.)
426    Terminates the list of options.  This is only needed if a filename
427    starts with a hyphen.  For example:
428	   </para>
429<literallayout>
430&dhpackage; -- -myfile.xml
431</literallayout>
432		<para>
433    will run <command>&dhpackage;</command> on the file
434    <filename>-myfile.xml</filename>.
435	   </para>
436        </listitem>
437      </varlistentry>
438    </variablelist>
439
440	<para>
441    Older versions of <command>&dhpackage;</command> do not support
442    reading from standard input.
443	</para>
444  </refsect1>
445
446  <refsect1>
447  <title>OUTPUT</title>
448    <para>
449	<command>&dhpackage;</command> outputs nothing for files which are problem-free.
450        If any input file is not well-formed, or if the output for any
451	input file cannot be opened, <command>&dhpackage;</command> prints a single
452	line describing	the problem to standard output.
453    </para>
454    <para>
455        If the <option>-k</option> option is not provided, <command>&dhpackage;</command>
456	halts upon encountering a well-formedness or output-file error.
457	If <option>-k</option> is provided, <command>&dhpackage;</command> continues
458	processing the remaining input files, describing problems found with any of them.
459    </para>
460  </refsect1>
461
462  <refsect1>
463  <title>EXIT STATUS</title>
464    <para>For option <option>-v</option> or <option>-h</option>, <command>&dhpackage;</command> always exits with status code 0.  For other cases, the following exit status codes are returned:
465    <variablelist>
466      <varlistentry>
467        <term><option>0</option></term>
468        <listitem><para>The input files are well-formed and the output (if requested) was written successfully.</para>
469        </listitem>
470      </varlistentry>
471      <varlistentry>
472        <term><option>1</option></term>
473        <listitem><para>An internal error occurred.</para>
474        </listitem>
475      </varlistentry>
476      <varlistentry>
477        <term><option>2</option></term>
478        <listitem><para>One or more input files were not well-formed or could not be parsed.</para>
479        </listitem>
480      </varlistentry>
481      <varlistentry>
482        <term><option>3</option></term>
483        <listitem><para>If using the <option>-d</option> option, an error occurred opening an output file.</para>
484        </listitem>
485      </varlistentry>
486      <varlistentry>
487        <term><option>4</option></term>
488        <listitem><para>There was a command-line argument error in how <command>&dhpackage;</command> was invoked.</para>
489        </listitem>
490      </varlistentry>
491    </variablelist>
492	</para>
493  </refsect1>
494
495
496  <refsect1>
497    <title>BUGS</title>
498	<para>
499	The errors should go to standard error, not standard output.
500	</para>
501	<para>
502	There should be a way to get <option>-d</option> to send its
503	output to standard output rather than forcing the user to send
504	it to a file.
505	</para>
506	<para>
507	I have no idea why anyone would want to use the
508	<option>-d</option>, <option>-c</option>, and
509	<option>-m</option> options.  If someone could explain it to
510	me, I'd like to add this information to this manpage.
511	</para>
512  </refsect1>
513
514  <refsect1>
515    <title>SEE ALSO</title>
516	<para>
517
518<literallayout>
519The Expat home page:                            https://libexpat.github.io/
520The W3 XML 1.0 specification (fourth edition):  https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/
521Billion laughs attack:                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_laughs_attack
522</literallayout>
523
524	</para>
525  </refsect1>
526
527  <refsect1>
528    <title>AUTHOR</title>
529    <para>
530      This manual page was originally written by &dhusername; &dhemail;
531      in December 2001 for
532      the &debian; system (but may be used by others).  Permission is
533      granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under
534      the terms of the <acronym>GNU</acronym> Free Documentation
535      License, Version 1.1.
536	</para>
537  </refsect1>
538</refentry>
539