Perform Validation checks on Internet-Drafts

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There are a number of tasks that need to be performed when an Internet-Draft is begin process to create an RFC. This tool performs a subset of those actions.

The actions performed are:

• Validate the file is well formed XML and that it conforms to the XML2RFC Version 3 schema as defined in RFC 7991.
• Verify that embedded XML stanzas are well formed.
• Verify that embedded ABNF is complete and well formed.
• Identify misspelled words.
• Detect duplicate words.

The tool can be used either in an interactive mode or in batch mode.

Usage

rfclint accepts a single XML document as input and optionally outputs a modified version of the document.

Basic Usage

rfclint [options] SOURCE

General Options

Short	Long	Description
-C	--clear-cache	purge the cache and exit
-N	--no-network	don't use the network to resolve references
-n	--no-rng	don't check against the RNG schema
-q	--quiet	don't print anything
.	--save-config	save configuration back to config file
-v	--verbose	print extra information
-V	--version	display the version number and exit
-X	--no-xinclude	don't resolve xi:include elements
.	--no-xml	don't check xml examples for well-formness
.	--bcp14	do checking for bcp14 keywords
.	--no-svgcheck	skip check svg for limited vocabulary
-c DIRECTORY	--cache=DIRECTORY	specify the primary cache directory to write to
.	--configfile=FILENAME	specify the configuration file to use
-o FILENAME	--out=FILENAME	specify an output filename
-r RNG	--rng=RNG	specify an alternate RNG file
.	--extract=TYPE	extract all source code for the given type

Spelling Options

The following options affect how the spell checking is performed.

Short	Long	Description
.	--no-dup-detection	don't perform duplicate detection
.	--no-spell	don't perform spell checking on the source
.	--no-suggest	don't provide suggestions for misspelled words
.	--skip-code	skip code elements when checking
.	--skip-artwork	skip artwork elements check checking
.	--no-curses	don't do window based
.	--color=TEXT	specify the color to use for word highlighting
.	--dictionary=FILENAME	specify an additional dictionary to use
.	--personal=FILENAME	specify the personal dictionary to use
.	--spell-program=FILENAME	program to use for spell checking
.	--spell-window=NUM	how many words to display as part of the context

It is assumed that the spell checking program is aspell and that aspell is on the path.
For Windows systems, it additionally look in C:\Program Files (x86)\Aspell\bin for the program.
If a different program is given, then it should be either an absolute path or on the path so that it can be located.

When a misspelled word is located, a certain amount of context will be provided along with the file and line number of the word. The spell-window parameter controls how many words are displayed with up to that number of words being displayed before and after the misspelled word. The context window is also restricted to the current paragraph.

The color option allows for the misspelled word to be highlighted, but it requires VT100 terminal emulation and thus may not always work well on Windows systems. The color defaults to bright on non-Windows systems and none on Windows systems.

If the value of spell-window is 0, then no context will be displayed.

ABNF Checking Options

Short	Long	Description
.	--no-abnf	don't perform abnf checking on the source
.	--abnf-add-rules	ABNF file to include when checking
.	--abnf-program=FILENAME	specify program to use for ABNF checking

Configuration File

rfclint keeps configuration information in a configuration file. By default the file is stored at

• On Windows: C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\rfclint\IETF\rfclint.cfg
• Otherwise: /home/USER/.local/share/rfclint/rfclint.cfg

The format of the configuration file is the standard INI file format.

Spell Configuration

• program - name of the spelling program to use - defaults to aspell
• window - number of words to display on each side of a misspelled word
• color - color to use to highlight the misspelled word
• suggest - Should suggested values be displayed? value is 0 or 1
• dictionaries - a comma separated list of dictionaries to include

ABNF Configuration

• program - name of the ABNF program to use - defaults to bap provided w/ rfclint (bap is only installed for systems identified as nt, darwin or linux*)
• addRules - name of file to be processed along with rules in the source

Windows and Curses

The version of python that ships on windows does not include a copy of the curses module as part of it. If interactive spell checking or duplicate detection is desired on a windows system then a curses module will need to be installed independent of this package. One place to locate a curses Python extension an be found at https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/. If no curses library is detected, rfclint will automatically turn on the --no-curses option.

Dependencies

rfclint depends on the following packages:

• lxml (>= 4.1.1)
• requests (>= 2.5.0)
• rfctools_common (>= 0.5.16)
• six
• colorama
• appdirs
• svgcheck (>=0.5.14)