Validator.nu Pipeline Overview

This document is obsolete.

For the current specification, see: https://github.com/validator/validator/wiki/Pipeline-overview

Validator.nu makes extensive use of SAX pipelines. When a document is being validated, the main processing loop is in the parser that pulls data from the InputStream and pushes out parse events.

These events are pushed through a pipeline of filters. Then each parse event is repeated to each validator in a chain of side-by-side validators. The parser, the filters and the validators push messages to a SAX ErrorHandler. In the cases of the HTML, XHTML and XML output formats, the ErrorHandler implementation in turn pushes out SAX events corresponding to the generated result document.

Parser Pipeline

HTML Pipeline

1. nu.validator.htmlparser.sax.HtmlParser (in streaming mode)
2. nu.validator.xml.WiretapXMLReaderWrapper (feeding each event first to nu.validator.source.LocationRecorder)
3. nu.validator.xml.AttributesPermutingXMLReaderWrapper
4. Validators

XML Pipeline

1. nu.validator.gnu.xml.aelfred2.SAXDriver
2. nu.validator.xml.IdFilter
3. nu.validator.xml.WiretapXMLReaderWrapper (feeding each event first to nu.validator.source.LocationRecorder)
4. nu.validator.xml.NamespaceDroppingXMLReaderWrapper (if there are namespaces to be filtered out)
5. nu.validator.xml.AttributesPermutingXMLReaderWrapper
6. nu.validator.servlet.RootNamespaceSniffer (if schema was left to autodetect)
7. Validators

Validator Chain

All (schema-based and non-schema-based) validators have to implement com.thaiopensource.validate.Validator. Non-schema-based checkers inherit from org.whattf.checker.Checker and are wrapped in org.whattf.checker.jing.CheckerValidator to implement the required interface.

When more than one schema is specified, the corresponding validators are chained using com.thaiopensource.relaxng.impl.CombineValidator.

Output Pipeline

1. nu.validator.messages.MessageEmitterAdapter (implements ErrorHandler)
2. nu.validator.messages.MessageEmitter

HTML and XHTML

1. nu.validator.messages.XhtmlMessageEmitter (extends MessageEmitter)
2. nu.validator.htmlparser.sax.HtmlSerializer (HTML) / nu.validator.htmlparser.sax.XmlSerializer (XHTML)
3. java.io.OutputStream

XML

1. nu.validator.messages.XmlMessageEmitter (extends MessageEmitter)
2. nu.validator.htmlparser.sax.XmlSerializer
3. java.io.OutputStream

JSON

1. nu.validator.messages.JsonMessageEmitter (extends MessageEmitter)
2. nu.validator.json.JsonHandler
3. java.io.OutputStream

GNU

1. nu.validator.messages.GnuMessageEmitter (extends MessageEmitter)
2. java.io.OutputStream

Text

1. nu.validator.messages.TextMessageEmitter (extends MessageEmitter)
2. java.io.OutputStream