Specberus is a checker used at W3C to validate the compliance of Technical Reports with publication rules.
Specberus is a Node.js application, distributed through npm. Alternatively, you can clone the repository and run:
$ npm install -dIn order to get all the dependencies installed. Naturally, this requires that you have a reasonably recent version of Node.js installed.
Currently there is no shell to run Specberus. Later we will add both Web and CLI interfaces based on the same core library.
$ W3C_API_KEY="<YOUR W3C API KEY>" npm start [PORT]Specberus relies on the W3C API to run a few checks. You will need to provide your key in an environment variable W3C_API_KEY
Meaning of positional parameters:
PORT: where Specberus will be listening for HTTP connections. (Default80.)
Examples:
$ W3C_API_KEY="<YOUR W3C API KEY>" npm start
$ W3C_API_KEY="<YOUR W3C API KEY>" npm start 3001
Set the environment variable DEBUG to run in debug mode instead:
$ DEBUG=true W3C_API_KEY="<YOUR W3C API KEY>" npm startThis modifies the behaviour of certain parts of the application to facilitate debugging.
eg, CSS and JS resources will not be loaded in their minified/uglified forms
(the web UI will load bootstrap.css, bootstrap.js and jquery.js instead of bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap.min.js and jquery.min.js).
If Specberus is not going to be served from the root directory of a domain, or if it will be served through a proxy,
set also BASE_URI pointing to the public root URI of Specberus; eg
$ BASE_URI=https://spec-store.com/check/ W3C_API_KEY=deadbeef npm start
$ BASE_URI=/hostname/can/be/omitted/ W3C_API_KEY=deadbeef npm start 88- Auto reload when developing
Run npm run live when developing. The app will automatically reload when changes happen.
$ W3C_API_KEY="xxx" npm run live
$ W3C_API_KEY="xxx" npm run live 3001Testing is done using mocha. Simply run:
$ W3C_API_KEY="<YOUR W3C API KEY>" mochafrom the root and you will be running the test suite. Mocha can be installed with:
$ npm install -g mochaSome of the tests can on occasion take a long time, or fail outright because a remote service is unavailable. To work around this, you can set SKIP_NETWORK:
$ SKIP_NETWORK=1 W3C_API_KEY="<YOUR W3C API KEY>" mochaThe interface you get when you require("specberus") is that from lib/validator. It returns a
Specberus instance that is properly configured for operation in the Node.js environment
(there is nominal support for running Specberus under other environments, but it isn't usable at this time).
(See also the REST API.)
const { Specberus } = require('specberus');
const specberus = new Specberus(apiKey);
// specberus.validate(...)
// specberus.extractMetadata(...)This method takes an object with the following fields:
url: URL of the content to check. One ofurl,source,file, ordocumentmust be specified and if several are they will be used in this order.source: AStringwith the content to check.file: A file system path to the content to check.document: A DOMDocumentobject to be checked.profile: A profile object which defines the validation. Required. See below.events: An event sink which supports the same interface as the Node.jsEventEmitter. Required. See below for the events that get generated.
This method eventually extends this with metadata inferred from the document.
Once the event end-all is emitted, the metadata should be available in a new property called meta.
The options accepted are equal to those in validate(), except that a profile is not necessary and will be ignored (finding out the profile is one of the
goals of this method).
this.meta will be an Object and may include up to 16 properties described below:
profiletitle: The (possible) title of the document.docDate: The date associated to the document.thisVersion: URL of this version of the document.latestVersion: URL of the latest version of the document.previousVersion: URL of the previous version of the document (the last one, if multiple are shown).editorsDraft: URL of the latest editor's draft.delivererIDs: ID(s) of the deliverer(s); anArrayofNumbers.editorIDs: ID(s) of the editor(s) responsible for the document; anArrayofNumbers.informative: Whether the document in informative or not.process: The process rules link.sameWorkAs: The previous shortlink if any.implementationFeedbackDue: The implementation review date for CRs.prReviewsDue: The review date for PRs.implementationReport: Implementation report link for CRs, PRs and RECs.errata: The errata link of the document.substantiveChanges: Whether the document is a REC and has proposed amendmentsnewFeatures: Whether the document is a REC and has proposed additions
If some of these pieces of metadata cannot be deduced, that key will not exist, or its value will not be defined.
This is an example of the value of Specberus.meta after the execution of Specberus.extractMetadata():
{
"profile": "WD",
"title": "Title of the spec",
"docDate": "2016-2-3",
"thisVersion": "https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-foobar-20160203/",
"latestVersion": "https://www.w3.org/TR/foobar/",
"previousVersion": "https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-foobar-20150101/",
"editorsDraft": "https://w3c.github.io/foobar/",
"delivererIDs": [123, 456],
"editorIDs": [ 12345 ],
"informative": false,
"process": "https://www.w3.org/2015/Process-20150901/" }
}Similar to the JS API, Specberus exposes a REST API via HTTP too.
The endpoint is <host>/api/.
Use either url or file to pass along the document (neither source nor document are allowed).
Note: If you want to use the public W3C instance of Specberus, you can replace <host> with https://www.w3.org/pubrules.
There are three GET methods available.
Returns the version string, eg 1.5.3.
Extract all known metadata from a document; see below for information about the return value.
Check the document (syntax).
Many of the options understood by the JS method validate are accepted.
The special profile auto is also available.
https://www.w3.org/pubrules/api/version
e.g. https://www.w3.org/pubrules/api/version
https://www.w3.org/pubrules/api/metadata?url=https://example.com/doc.html
Metadata is a bunch of data extracted from the document. It includes the type (profile) of the document, publish date, editors' names, Patent Policy version the document is under, etc...
e.g. https://www.w3.org/pubrules/api/metadata?url=https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/WD-i18n-glossary-20210708/
https://www.w3.org/pubrules/api/validate?url=https://example.com/doc.html&profile=auto
auto profile is the easiest way to validate a document. The validation relies on the automatically extracted data.
The validation result contains both the metadata and the errors/warnings regarding the document.
https://www.w3.org/pubrules/api/validate?url=https://example.com/doc.html&profile=WD&validation=simple-validation&patentPolicy=pp2020
Pubrules supports advanced configs to make the validation more accurate.
| Config | Explanation | Supported value |
|---|---|---|
| validation | Recursively validate multipart documents | no-validation, simple-validation, recursive |
| informativeOnly | If the document is informative | true, false |
| echidnaReady | Check that the document is valid for automatic publication with Echidna | true, false |
| patentPolicy | Patent Policy version | pp2020, pp2004 |
Methods metadata and validate return a JSON object with these properties:
success(boolean): whether the operation succeeded, or not.errors(array): all errors found.warnings(array): all warnings.info(array): additional, informative messages.metadata(object): extracted metadata; see structure here.
If there is an internal error, the document cannot be retrieved or is not recognised, or validation fails, both methods would return HTTP status code 400.
Also, in the case of validate, success would be false and errors.length > 0.
This is an example of a successful validation of a document, with profile auto:
{
"success": true,
"errors": [],
"warnings": [
"headers.ol-toc",
"links.linkchecker",
"links.compound",
"headers.dl"
],
"info": [
"structure.display-only",
"structure.display-only",
"structure.display-only",
"validation.wcag"
],
"metadata": {
"profile": "WD",
"title": "Character Model for the World Wide Web: String Matching and Searching",
"docDate": "2016-4-7",
"thisVersion": "https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-charmod-norm-20160407/",
"latestVersion": "https://www.w3.org/TR/charmod-norm/",
"previousVersion": "https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-charmod-norm-20151119/",
"editorsDraft": "https://w3c.github.io/charmod-norm/",
"delivererIDs": [32113],
"editorIDs": [33573],
"informative": false,
"process": "https://www.w3.org/2015/Process-20150901/",
"url": "https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-charmod-norm-20160407/"
}
}When the profile is given by the user (instead of being set to auto), fewer items of metadata are returned.
metadata returns a similar structure, where all values are empty arrays, except for the key metadata which contains the metadata object.
Profiles are simple objects that support the following API:
- name: A
Stringbeing the name of this profile. - rules: An
Arrayof rule objects which are checked in this profile.
A profile is basically a configuration of what to check. You can load a specific profile from under
lib/profiles or create your own.
Here follows the current hierarchy of profiles. Each profile inherits all rules from its parent profile. Profiles that are identical to its parent profile, ie that do not add any new rules, are marked too.
baseTRWDWD-Echidna
FPWD(identical)PRCRCR-Echidna
CRDCRD-Echidna
RECREC-OBSOLETEREC-RSCNDREC-SUPERSEDEDDNOTEDNOTE-EchidnaNOTENOTE-EchidnaSTMTDRYCRYCRYDRY
SubmissionSUBMMEM-SUBM
For a given checking run, the event sink you specify will be receiving a bunch of events as indicated below. Events are shown as having parameters since those are passed to the event handler.
start-all(profile-name): Fired first to indicate that the profile's checking has started.end-all(profile-name): Fired last to indicate that the profile's checking has completed. When you receive this you are promised that all testing operations, including asynchronous ones, have terminated.done(rule-name): Fired when a specific rule has finished processing, including its asynchronous tasks.ok(rule-name): Fired to indicate that a rule has succeeded. There is only oneokper rule. There cannot also beerrevents but there can bewarningevents.err(error-name, data): Fired when an error is detected. Thedatacontains further details, that depend on the error but should feature amessagefield. There can be multiple errors for a given rule. There cannot also beokevents but there can bewarnings.warning(warnings-name, data): Fired for non-fatal problems with the document that may nevertheless require investigation. There may be several for a rule.info(info-name, data): Fired for additional information items detected by the validator.metadata(key, value): Fired for every piece of document metadata found by the validator.exception(message): Fired when there is a system error, such as a File not found error.messagecontains details about this error. All exceptions are displayed on the error console in addition to this event being fired.
Rules are simple modules that just expose a check(sr, cb) method. They receive a Specberus object
and a callback, use the Specberus object to fire validation events and call the callback when
they're done.
The Specberus object exposes the following API that's useful for validation:
loader. The loader object that loaded the content, which exposes the content'surlandsourceif they are known.sink. The event target on which to fire validation events.version. The Specberus version.checkSelector(selector, rule-name, cb). Some rules need to do nothing other than to check that a selector returns some content. For this case, the rule can just call this method with the selector and its callback, and Specberus will conveniently take care of all the rest.norm(text). Returns a whitespace-normalised version of the text.getDocumentDate(). Returns a Date object that matches the document's date as specified in the headers'stateElement(id="w3c-state").getDocumentStateElement(). Returns the element that contains the document's date.