It’s now commonplace to send or receive data files in XML format. And some eBusiness Suite functionality relies on XML configurations files. For example, BI Publisher data definitions are XML-formatted, and if you try to upload a badly-formed data template file to a BI Publisher data definition, Oracle responds with:

Error: The uploaded file XXAP073_BW_USER_RIGHTS_INT_XDO_DATA_TEMPL.xml is invalid. The file should be in XML-DATA-TEMPLATE format.

Not very helpful.

However, there’s a useful UNIX utility that will parse an XML file, and highlight any badly-formed XML syntax. It’s called xmllint:

xmllint --noout ${XML_FILE} 

It will return 0 (zero) if the XML file contains well-formed XML data; if the XML is badly formed, xmllint will list the specific errors. For example…

bash:dave$ XML_FILE='XML_DATAFILE.xml';
bash:dave$ echo ${XML_FILE}
XML_DATAFILE.xml
bash:dave$
bash:dave$ xmllint  --noout ${XML_FILE}
XML_DATAFILE.xml:320: parser error : attributes construct error
      <element name='FIRST_NAME' value='FIRST_NAME'/>;
                                                     ^
XML_DATAFILE.xml:320: parser error : Couldn't find end of Start Tag element line 320
      <element name='FIRST_NAME' value='FIRST_NAME'/>;
                                                     ^
bash:dave$

I’ve used this in file transfer interfaces, to check that the XML file being passed contains well-formed XML data, for example:

xmllint  --noout ${XML_FILE}
VALIDATE_XML=$?

echo 'XML format validation result : ${VALIDATE_XML}'
  
if [ ${VALIDATE_XML} != 0 ]; then
  echo ' ';
  echo 'XML data is badly formed';
fi