XMLLINT(1) xmllint XMLLINT(1)
xmllint Manual xmllint Manual
03/04/2026
NAME
xmllint - command line XML tool
SYNOPSIS
xmllint [--version | --debug | --quiet | --shell |
--xpath "XPath_expression" | --xpath0 "XPath_expression" |
--copy | --recover | --huge | --nocompact | --nodefdtd |
--nodict | --noenc | --noent | --nofixup-base-uris | --noout |
--nonet | --path "PATH(S)" | --load-trace | --valid |
--postvalid | --dtdvalid URL | --dtdvalidfpi FPI | --timing |
--output FILE | --repeat | --insert | --strict-namespace |
--compress | --html | --xmlout | --push | --memory |
--max-ampl INTEGER | --maxmem NBBYTES | --nowarning |
--noblanks | --nocdata | --format | --pretty INTEGER |
--encode ENCODING | --dropdtd | --nsclean | --catalogs |
--nocatalogs | --auto | --xinclude | --noxincludenode |
--loaddtd | --dtdattr | --stream | --walker |
--pattern PATTERNVALUE | --relaxng SCHEMA | --schema SCHEMA |
--schematron SCHEMA | --c14n | --c14n11 | --exc-c14n |
--pedantic | --sax | --sax1 | --oldxml10] {XML-FILE(S)... | -}
DESCRIPTION
The xmllint program parses one or more XML files, specified on the
command line as XML-FILE (or the standard input if the filename
provided is - ). It prints various types of output, depending upon the
options selected. It is useful for detecting errors both in XML code
and in the XML parser itself.
xmllint is part of the libxml2 library.
VALIDATION OPTIONS
Options enabling validation.
--dtdvalid URL
Use the DTD specified by an URL for validation.
--dtdvalidfpi FPI
Use the DTD specified by a Formal Public Identifier FPI for
validation, note that this will require a catalog exporting that
Formal Public Identifier to work.
--relaxng SCHEMA
Use RelaxNG file named SCHEMA for validation.
--schema SCHEMA
Use a W3C XML Schema file named SCHEMA for validation.
--schematron SCHEMA
Use a Schematron file named SCHEMA for validation.
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--valid
Determine if the document is a valid instance of the included
Document Type Definition (DTD). A DTD to be validated against also
can be specified at the command line using the --dtdvalid option.
By default, xmllint also checks to determine if the document is
well-formed.
--strict-namespace
Return an error if the document is well-formed, but has namespace
errors. This enforces namespace-well-formedness.
PARSER OPTIONS
The following options set the respective parser options.
--dtdattr
Fetch external DTD and populate the tree with inherited
attributes. Implies --loaddtd.
--huge
Ignore some hardcoded parser limits.
--loaddtd
Fetch an external DTD and external parameter entities.
--max-ampl INTEGER
Set the maximum amplification factor which protects against
exponential entity expansion ("billion laughs"). The default value
is 5. Documents making heavy use of entity expansion may require a
higher value.
--noblanks
Drop "ignorable" blank spaces. This option is unreliable and
shouldn't be used.
--nocatalogs
Do not use any catalogs.
--nocdata
Substitute CDATA section by equivalent text nodes.
--nodefdtd
Do not set default HTML doctype (parser option
HTML_PARSE_NODEFDTD).
--noenc
Ignore encoding declaration (parser option XML_PARSE_IGNORE_ENC).
--noent
Substitute entity values for entity references. By default,
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xmllint leaves entity references in place. This enables loading of
external DTDs and entities.
--nofixup-base-uris
Don't fix xml:base URIs when processing XIncludes (parser option
XML_PARSE_NOBASEFIX).
--nonet
Do not use the Internet to fetch DTDs or entities. Has no effect
with libxml2 2.15 or later.
--nowarning
Do not emit warnings from the parser and/or validator.
--nsclean
Remove redundant namespace declarations.
--oldxml10
Use deprecated parsing rules before XML 1.0, 5th edition.
--pedantic
Enable additional warnings.
--recover
Output any parsable portions of an invalid document. Exact
behavior is unspecified. Use of this option is discouraged.
--xinclude
Do XInclude processing.
MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS
Options that don't fall in another category.
--catalogs
Use the SGML catalog(s) from SGML_CATALOG_FILES. XML catalogs are
loaded by default.
--dropdtd
Remove DTD after parsing.
--html
Use the HTML parser.
--path "PATH(S)"
Use the (space- or colon-separated) list of filesystem paths
specified by PATHS to load DTDs or entities. Enclose
space-separated lists by quotation marks.
--quiet
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Don't print informational messages to stderr.
--sax
Print SAX callbacks for debugging. Can be used for streaming DTD
and Schema validation when used with --noout.
--shell
Run a navigating shell. Details on available commands in shell
mode are below (see the section called SHELL COMMANDS).
--stream
Use streaming API - useful when used in combination with --relaxng
or --valid options for validation of files that are too large to
be held in memory.
--version
Display the version of libxml2 used.
OUTPUT OPTIONS
Options controlling output. Except for --noout these have no effect in
SAX or stream mode.
--compress
Turn on gzip(1) compression of output.
--c14n, --c14n11, --exc-c14n
Use the W3C XML Canonicalisation (C14N) to serialize the result of
parsing to stdout. It keeps comments in the result.
--encode ENCODING
Output in the given encoding. Note that this works for full
document not fragments or result from XPath queries.
--format
Reformat and reindent the output. The XMLLINT_INDENT environment
variable controls the indentation. The default value is two spaces
" ").
Especially in the absence of a DTD, this feature has never worked
reliably and is fundamentally broken.
--noout
Suppress output. By default, xmllint outputs the result tree.
--output FILE
Define a file path where xmllint will save the result of parsing.
Usually the programs build a tree and save it on stdout, with this
option the result XML instance will be saved onto a file.
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--pretty INTEGER
Value 0 means no formatting, 1 means XML_SAVE_FORMAT (same as
--format), 2 means XML_SAVE_WSNONSIG.
--xmlout
Used in conjunction with --html. Usually when HTML is parsed the
document is saved with the HTML serializer. But with this option
the resulting document is saved with the XML serializer. This is
primarily used to generate XHTML from HTML input.
DEBUG OPTIONS
The following options can be used to debug the libxml2 library.
Behavior of these options may change without notice.
--auto
Generate a small document for testing purposes.
--copy
Test the internal copy implementation.
--debug
Parse a file and output an annotated tree of the in-memory version
of the document.
--insert
Test for valid insertions. DEPRECATED: This feature will be
removed.
--load-trace
Display all the documents loaded during the processing to stderr.
--maxmem NNBYTES
Test the parser memory support. NNBYTES is the maximum number of
bytes the library is allowed to allocate. This can also be used to
make sure batch processing of XML files will not exhaust the
virtual memory of the server running them.
--memory
Parse from memory.
--nocompact
Do not generate compact text nodes (parser option
XML_PARSE_COMPACT). Only for debugging.
--nodict
Don't use dictionaries (parser option XML_PARSE_NODICT). Only for
debugging.
--noxincludenode
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Do XInclude processing but do not generate XInclude start and end
nodes.
--pattern PATTERNVALUE
Used to exercise the pattern recognition engine, which can be used
with the reader interface to the parser. It allows to select some
nodes in the document based on an XPath (subset) expression. Used
for debugging.
--postvalid
Validate after parsing has completed.
--push
Use the push mode of the parser.
--repeat
Repeat 100 times, for timing or profiling.
--sax1
Use deprecated SAX1 interface (only for debugging).
--timing
Output information about the time it takes xmllint to perform the
various steps.
--walker
Test the walker module, which is a reader interface but for a
document tree, instead of using the reader API on an unparsed
document it works on an existing in-memory tree. Used for
debugging.
--xpath "XPath_expression"
Run an XPath expression given as argument and print the result. In
case of a nodeset result, each node in the node set is serialized
in full in the output. In case of an empty node set the "XPath set
is empty" result will be shown and exit code 11 will be returned..
SHELL COMMANDS
xmllint offers an interactive shell mode invoked with the --shell
command. Available commands in shell mode include (in alphabetical
order):
base
Display XML base of the node.
bye
Leave the shell.
cat NODE
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Display the given node or the current one.
cd PATH
Change the current node to the given path (if unique) or root if
no argument is given.
dir PATH
Dumps information about the node (namespace, attributes, content).
du PATH
Show the structure of the subtree under the given path or the
current node.
exit
Leave the shell.
help
Show this help.
load FILENAME
Load a new document with the given filename.
ls PATH
List contents of the given path or the current directory.
pwd
Display the path to the current node.
quit
Leave the shell.
save FILENAME
Save the current document to the given filename or to the original
name.
validate
Check the document for errors.
write FILENAME
Write the current node to the given filename.
ENVIRONMENT
SGML_CATALOG_FILES
SGML catalog behavior can be changed by redirecting queries to the
user's own set of catalogs. This can be done by setting the
SGML_CATALOG_FILES environment variable to a list of catalogs. An
empty one should deactivate loading the default catalog.
XML_CATALOG_FILES
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XML catalog behavior can be changed by redirecting queries to the
user's own set of catalogs. This can be done by setting the
XML_CATALOG_FILES environment variable to a space-separated list
of catalogs. Use percent-encoding to escape spaces or other
characters. An empty variable should deactivate loading the
default catalog.
XML_DEBUG_CATALOG
Setting the environment variable XML_DEBUG_CATALOG to non-zero
using the export command outputs debugging information related to
catalog operations.
XMLLINT_INDENT
Setting the environment variable XMLLINT_INDENT controls the
indentation. The default value is two spaces " ".
DIAGNOSTICS
xmllint return codes provide information that can be used when calling
it from scripts.
0
No error
1
Unclassified
2
Error in DTD
3
Validation error
4
Document isn't well-formed or couldn't be read
5
Error in schema compilation
6
Error writing output
7
Error in pattern (generated when --pattern option is used)
9
Out of memory error
10
XPath evaluation error
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11
XPath result is empty
SEE ALSO
More information can be found in the libxml2 repo at m[blue]-
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2m[]
AUTHORS
John Fleck <jfleck@inkstain.net>
Ziying Sherwin <sherwin@nlm.nih.gov>
Heiko Rupp <hwr@pilhuhn.de>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright c 2001, 2004
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