= W3C Validators Gem README

W3C Validators is a Ruby wrapper for the World Wide Web Consortium's online 
validation services.

It supports the markup validator, the feed validator and the CSS validator.

=== Installation

  gem install w3c_validators

=== Usage

There are three main validator classes available, the W3CValidators::MarkupValidator 
(used for HTML), the W3CValidators::FeedValidator and the 
W3CValidators::CSSValidator.

Each validator has offers three different validation methods.

* +validate_text+ methods take a string
* +validate_file+ methods take a path to a file
* +validate_uri+ methods take a published URL

In addition, the W3CValidators::MarkupValidator has a validate_uri_quickly method, which 
performs a HEAD request against the markup validation service.  The Results 
of this call give an error count but no error details.

==== Using a local validator

Each of the three validators allows you to specify a custom path to the 
validator.  You can set your own validator like this:

  validator = MarkupValidator.new(:validator_uri => 'http://localhost/check')

=== Examples

==== Example #1: Markup validator, local file

  require 'w3c_validators'
  
  include W3CValidators

  @validator = MarkupValidator.new
  
  # override the DOCTYPE
  @validator.set_doctype!(:html32)
  
  # turn on debugging messages
  @validator.set_debug!(true)

  file = File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/fixtures/markup.html'
  results = @validator.validate_file(fp)

  if results.errors.length > 0
    results.errors.each do |err|
      puts err.to_s
    end
  else
    puts 'Valid!'
  end
  
  puts 'Debugging messages'
  
  results.debug_messages.each do |key, value|
    puts "#{key}: #{value}"
  end


==== Example #2: Feed validator, remote file

  require 'w3c_validators'
  
  include W3CValidators

  @validator = FeedValidator.new

  results = @validator.validate_uri('http://example.com/feed.xml')

  if results.errors.length > 0
    results.errors.each do |err|
      puts err.to_s
    end
  else
    puts 'Valid!'
  end

==== Example #3: CSS validator, text fragment

  require 'w3c_validators'
  
  include W3CValidators

  @validator = CSSValidator.new

  results = @validator.validate_text('body { margin: 0px; }')

  if results.errors.length > 0
    results.errors.each do |err|
      puts err.to_s
    end
  else
    puts 'Valid!'
  end

=== Tests

Run unit tests using <tt>rake test</tt>.  Note that there is a one second delay 
between each call to the W3C's validators per their request.


=== Credits and code

Documentation and the source code are available at http://code.dunae.ca/w3c_validators.

Written by Alex Dunae (dunae.ca, e-mail 'code' at the same domain), 2007.

Thanks to Ryan King (http://theryanking.com/) for creating the 0.9.1 update.