Votlint checks that the XML input is well-formed, and, unless the
valid=false
parameter is supplied, that it validates against the
1.0 or 1.1 (as appropriate) DTD. Although VOTable 1.1 is properly
defined against an XML Schema rather than a DTD, in conjunction with
the other checks done, the DTD validation turns out to be pretty comprehensive.
Some of the DTD validity checks are also done by
votlint
internally, so that some validity-type
errors may give rise to more than one warning.
In general, the program errs on the side of verbosity.
In addition to these checks, the following checks are carried out, and lead to ERROR reports if violations are found:
TD
contents incompatible
datatype
/arraysize
attributes declared
in FIELD
FIELD
PARAM
values incompatible with declared
datatype
/arraysize
arraysize
declarationsTD
elements with the wrong number of elementsPARAM
values with the wrong number of
elementsnrows
attribute on TABLE
element different
from the number of rows actually in the tableVOTABLE
version
attribute is unknownref
attributes without matching ID
elements
elsewhere in the documentID
attribute value on multiple elements.Additionally, the following conditions, which are not actually forbidden by the VOTable standard, will generate WARNING reports. Some of these may result from harmless constructions, but it is wise at least to take a look at the input which caused them:
TD
elements in row of TABLEDATA
tableTABLE
with no FIELD
elementsFIELD
or PARAM
elements with
datatype
of either
char
or unicodeChar
and undeclared arraysize
-
this is a common error which can result in
ignoring all but the first character in TD
elements from
a columnref
attributes which reference other elements by
ID
where the reference makes no, or questionable sense
(e.g. FIELDref
references FIELD
in a
different table)FIELD
s) with the
same name
attributes