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W3C Validator API

2 November 2006 | 21 Comments | Tags ,

The W3C announced the release of an API for the HTML validator or rather, that’s what they call it. In fact, it’s nothing more than an output filter on their normal validator output, which gives SOAP 1.2 conforming output. It requires a HTTP request though, which makes it a rather funny “API” to deal with.

I created a simple implementation on top of it, using PHP’s DOMDocument extension to walk through the result, as using NUSoap or something like that felt like overkill, and it would be hard since the request isn’t a SOAP request. It’s quite simple, but it’s also slow…

So, my wishlist for the next version of this API:

  • a way to do a SOAP request instead of a HTTP request;
  • faster, please, please W3C, make it faster;
  • a way to specify what info i want, it would be cool to be able to just know if a site is valid or not.

If they fix that, I’m a happy camper :)

Joost de Valk

Joost is an internet entrepreneur and the founder of Yoast. He has a long history in WordPress and digital marketing. On our blog, he has written a lot about SEO in general, technical SEO and important topics related to SEO.

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21 Responses to W3C Validator API

  1. Rene
    Rene  • 17 years ago

    Excellent code, does anyone know how I can get this to work on php4. I know the DOMDocument needs to be changed, but I’m not sure what to.
    Thanks.

  2. yoshi
    yoshi  • 17 years ago

    i tried it but im having some errors
    on this line [code]apc_fetch($url)[/code]

  3. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    NP, this is exactly what I intended by implementing it :)

  4. Sudar
    Sudar  • 18 years ago

    Thank for updating it.

    Let’s hope that people at W3C come up with an elegant approach for API as well. :-)

    Cheers,
    Sudar

  5. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    Sudar: the webinterface errors as well, yet more elegant than the API does, I’ve email Olivier about it.

  6. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    Ey Sudar,

    you’re right, I’ve thrown a more decent error now, but it does throw an error on the W3 side, so I’ll be mailing Olivier about that :)

    Regards,
    Joost

  7. Sudar
    Sudar  • 18 years ago

    Hi Joost,

    The above code fails when we pass a url which is having invalid or wrong Charset.
    You can use this page to check this http://googlemyway.com/searchgoogle.php

    Cheers,
    Sudar

  8. Thinkbasic
    Thinkbasic  • 18 years ago

    thnx guys!

  9. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    Olivier: thx for letting us know! Thinkbasic: i’ve enabled my implementation again :)

  10. olivier
    olivier  • 18 years ago

    Joost, Thinkbasic,

    The API on validator.w3.org is enabled again. My apologies for the hiccup, and many thanks to Joost for telling me about it.

  11. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    I’ll let you know, probably through this blog :)

  12. Thinkbasic
    Thinkbasic  • 18 years ago

    Ok let me know when it works!
    I want to use this on my website!

  13. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    Thinkbasic: you’re right, it’s disabled at the moment… I’ve emailed the responsible person at the W3C about it.

  14. Thinkbasic
    Thinkbasic  • 18 years ago

    hmmm I keep getting this message:

    Didn’t receive an answer from W3 validator, please reload.

  15. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    fixed another small bug where it would say your document was invalid when it hadn’t received a proper response, it’s now all done it seems :)

  16. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    Thx for the tip on Curl, had to install it but it seems more stable indeed.

  17. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    The functions.php just does my layout, wouldn’t be much use to you :)

  18. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    I updated the validator API script to now show warnings and warningcount as well, it now uses all the data you can get from the API.

  19. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    Scott: you’re a guy to my heart :) I hope one day all webmasters will grasp this…

  20. Scott at Realepicurean
    Scott at Realepicurean  • 18 years ago

    Some people still aren’t really fully into this validation thing, but for me, it’s as much about education as anything else.

    I think browsers are intelligent enough to work around a few little hiccups, but still, we should all try and aim for the future.

  21. Joost de Valk
    ^  Post author
    Joost de Valk  • 18 years ago

    Perhaps I should read up on my SOAP, but tbh i think you’re wrong :). Downloading the validator is NOT what I’d want, since I couldn’t be bothered to completely install the thing… I think i’m giving all information that is coming back back…