Xmllint is an XML validator. What does that mean?
XML are the codes, or tags, we put around data so we can send it easily from computer to computer. xmllint audits my tags for errors.
There are three steps to download xmllint onto a Windows machine.
We will get the code from XMLsoft. Looking carefully on their home page, we see that Ivor Zlatkovic has precompiled what we need for Windows. I didn’t get mine downloaded correctly first time. So I have prepared an outline to read before we read the more technical notes from Ivor.
Step 1. Decide where you are going to store your xmllint files
- I followed Ivor’s suggestion and created a directory in my C: folder called tools.
- And then I created a sub-directory in C:tools called libxml
- The complete name of this sub-directory is C:toolslibxml
Step 2. Download the software for xmllint to run and put it in C:toolslibxml
- In addition to Ivor’s page at XML soft, these instructions are also worth reading.
- Basically, you will download 4 zip files (not 3 as the second set of instructions says). This involves 4 steps.
- Step One. Look where Ivor lists the files for the latest win32 versions of libxml2, libxslt, iconv and zlib.
- Step Two. Download all four zipfiles. They will go to your default download folder.
- Step Three. Open all four zipfiles and look for their bin directory. In Windows 7, the zipfiles open without using winzip.
- Step Four. One-by-one, copy the files in each of the four bin directories into the folder you made earlier: C:toolslibxml
Step 3: Zdjust your Path statement so that if you can work keep this folder neat and work on XML files elsewhere.
- Basically, you have three steps
- Step A. Find your Path statement.
- Step B. Edit your Path statement by adding “;C:toolslibxml”
- Step C. Save! And Restart your machine.
Instructions for finding your Path Statement.
Check everything is working.
- Go to your Command Prompt (Go to Start and type in Command Prompt; Look at the top)
- Type in “xmllint” <return>
- A whole heap of information about xmllint should scroll down.
Now you can use xmllint to validate XML.