[uf-dev] What would a microformats validator look like?

[Brian Suda]

For those who don't know, the discuss list has been talking about
microformats validators. This was brought on by other blog posts on
the topic[1].

hCard, hCalendar and hAtom all have XSLT files that convert the HTML
into their respective formats. I realize a validator is important (i
usually convert my files into their corresponding format and then
validate that), so what would a validator look like - output-wise?

I wrote (and needs updating) a sort of hCard pre-flight check-list. It
simply made sure there was an FN and N property.

Other microformats such as XFN only have one property rel="{enumerated
list}", but if you find a rel with a value that is NOT in that list,
that doesn't mean the page doesn't validate!

So what do we (or people want) when they say the word "validator"?

My thinking is that they don't really want a validator, but something
that says 'hey! you are using class="city" you should be using
class="locality"', but that doesn't make the HTML invalid - for all we
know 'city' is a css style. ISO dates have been an issue, so i'll
admit those sort of values could be checked against.

A validator for microformats such as XFN, Rel-Tag, Rel-License only
could just output properties they have found (which is still better
than nothing). For more complex microformats, hCard, hCalendar, hAtom,
it could atleast list any minimally required properties for
transformation (e.g. FN, N).

The XSLT files would be VERY easy to edit so that they outputted HTML
instead of plain/text .ics/.vcf then include that output in the
validation page results.

Does anyone else have any other thoughts about what a "Validator"
should look like?

-brian

[1] - http://norman.walsh.name/2006/04/13/validatingMicroformats

--
brian suda
http://suda.co.uk