Here is a brief example of running votlint
against
a (very short) imperfect VOTable document. If the document looks like
this:
<VOTABLE version="1.1"> <RESOURCE> <TABLE nrows="2"> <FIELD name="Identifier" datatype="char"/> <FIELD name="RA" datatype="double"/> <FIELD name="Dec" datatype="double"/> <DESCRIPTION>A very small table</DESCRIPTION> <DATA> <TABLEDATA> <TR> <TD>Fomalhaut</TD> <TD>344.48</TD> <TD>-29.618</TD> <TD>HD 216956</TD> </TR> </TABLEDATA> </DATA> </TABLE> </RESOURCE> </VOTABLE>then the output of a
votlint
run looks like this:
INFO (l.4): No arraysize for character, FIELD implies single character ERROR (l.7): Element "TABLE" does not allow "DESCRIPTION" here. WARNING (l.11): Characters after first in char scalar ignored (missing arraysize?) WARNING (l.15): Wrong number of TDs in row (expecting 3 found 4) ERROR (l.18): Row count (1) not equal to nrows attribute (2)(Note that the details of the reports will vary according to the XML parser/validator that forms part of your Java installation.)
Note also that the warning at line 11 has resulted from
the same error as the
one at line 4 - because the FIELD
element has no
arraysize
attribute, arraysize="1"
(single character) is assumed,
while the author almost certainly intended arraysize="*"
(unknown length string).
By examining these warnings you can see what needs to be done to fix this table up. Here is what it should look like:
<VOTABLE version="1.1"> <RESOURCE> <TABLE nrows="1"> <!-- change row count --> <DESCRIPTION>A very small table</DESCRIPTION> <!-- move DESCRIPTION --> <FIELD name="Identifier" datatype="char" arraysize="*"/> <!-- add arraysize --> <FIELD name="RA" datatype="double"/> <FIELD name="Dec" datatype="double"/> <DATA> <TABLEDATA> <TR> <TD>Fomalhaut</TD> <TD>344.48</TD> <TD>-29.618</TD> </TR> <!-- remove extra TD --> </TABLEDATA> </DATA> </TABLE> </RESOURCE> </VOTABLE>When fed this version,
votlint
gives no warnings.