XML Conformance Tests

Conformance tests can be used by developers, content creators, and users alike to increase their level of confidence in product quality. In circumstances where interoperability is necessary, these tests can also be used to determine that differing implementations support the same set of features.

This report provides supporting documentation for all of the tests contributed by members of the OASIS XML Conformance Subcommittee. Sources from which these tests have been collected include: ; . Although the tests came from a variety of sources, the actual test descriptions and references back to the recommendation were in many instances added by members of this subcommittee. It is anticipated that this report will supplement the actual tests, which are available from http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xml-conformance/xml-test-suite.html.

Comments/suggestions should be forwarded to the XML Conformance Subcommittee Chair, Mary Brady <mbrady@nist.gov>.

2. Test Matrix

Two basic types of test are presented here. These are respectively Binary Tests and Output Tests.

2.1 Binary Tests

Binary conformance tests are documents which are grouped into one of four categories. Given a document in a given category, each kind of XML parser must treat it consistently and either accept it (a positive test) or reject it (a negative test). It is in that sense that the tests are termed "binary". The XML 1.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation talks in terms of two types of XML processor: validating ones, and nonvalidating ones. There are two differences between these types of processors:

Validating processors check special productions that nonvalidating parsers don't, called validity constraints. (Both must check a basic set of productions, requiring XML documents to be well formed.)
Nonvalidating processors are permitted to not include external entities, such as files with text. Accordingly, they may not report errors which would have been detected had those entities been read.

There are two types of such entity, parameter entities holding definitions which affect validation and other processing; and general entities which hold marked up text. It will be appreciated that there are then five kinds of XML processor: validating processors, and four kinds of nonvalidating processor based on the combinations of external entity which they include.

**Basic XML Parsing Test Matrix**
Test Document Type v. Parser Type
	Nonvalidating		Validating
	External Entities Ignored (3 cases)	External Entities Read	Validating
Valid Documents	accept	accept	accept
Invalid Documents	accept	accept	reject
Non-WF Documents	reject	reject	reject
WF Errors tied to External Entity	accept (varies)	reject	reject
Documents with Optional Errors	(not specified)	(not specified)	(not specified)

At this time, the XML community primarily uses parsers which are in the rightmost two columns of this table, calling them Well Formed XML Parsers (or "WF Parsers") and Validating XML Parsers. A second test matrix could be defined to address the variations in the types of of XML processor which do not read all external entities. That additional matrix is not provided here at this time.

2.2 Output Tests

The XML 1.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation places a number of requirements on XML processors, to ensure that they report information to applications as needed. Such requirements are testable. Validating processors are required to report slightly more information than nonvalidating ones, so some tests will require separate output files. Some of the information that must be reported will not be reportable without reading all the external entities in a particular test. Many of the tests for valid documents are paired with an output file to ensure that the XML processor provides the correct information.

The output of these tests is provided in two forms, as described in SUN Microsystems XML Canonical Forms. At present, the James Clark collection provides corresponding output in First XML Canonical Form, and the SUN Microsystems collection provides corresponding output in Second XML Canonical Form. When the W3C XML Group finalizes its work on Canonical XML, these output files will be updated.

3. Test Case Descriptions

This section of this report contains descriptions of test cases, each of which fits into the categories noted above. Each test case includes a document of one of the types in the binary test matrix above (e.g. valid or invalid documents).

In some cases, an output file , as described in Section 2.2, will also be associated with a valid document, which is used for output testing. If such a file exists, it will be noted at the end of the description of the input document.

The description for each test case is presented as a two part table. The right part describes what the test does. This description is intended to have enough detail to evaluate diagnostic messages. The left part includes:

An entry describing the Sections and/or Rules from the XML 1.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation which this case excercises.
The unique Test ID within a given Collection for this test.
The Collection from which this test originated. Given the Test ID and the Collection, each test can be uniquely identified.
Some tests may have a field identifying the kinds of external Entities a nonvalidating processor must include (parameter, general, or both) to be able to detect any errors in that test case.

Note that the output format of this report is subject to change. Also, since XSL does not currently support the type of sorting rule necessary to make section numbers like 2.12 appear after 2.2, the ordering is not quite what is desired.

3.1 Valid XML Documents

All conforming XML 1.0 Processors are required to accept valid documents, reporting no errors. In this section of this test report are found descriptions of test cases which fit into this category.

3.2 Invalid XML Documents

All conforming XML 1.0 Validating Processors are required to report recoverable errors in the case of documents which are Invalid. Such errors are violations of some validity constraint (VC).

If a validating processor does not report an error when given one of these test cases, or if the error reported is a fatal error, it is not conformant. If the error reported does not correspond to the problem listed in this test description, that could also be a conformance problem; it might instead be a faulty diagnostic.

All conforming XML 1.0 Nonvalidating Processors should accept these documents, reporting no errors.

3.3 Documents that are Not Well Formed

All conforming XML 1.0 Processors are required to report fatal errors in the case of documents which are not Well Formed. Such errors are basically of two types: (a) the document violates the XML grammar; or else (b) it violates a well formedness constraint (WFC). There is a single exception to that requirement: nonvalidating processors which do not read certain types of external entities are not required to detect (and hence report) these errors.

If a processor does not report a fatal error when given one of these test cases, it is not conformant. If the error reported does not correspond to the problem listed in this test description, that could also be a conformance problem; it might instead be a faulty diagnostic.

3.4 XML Documents with Optional Errors

Conforming XML 1.0 Processors are permitted to ignore certain errors, or to report them at user option. In this section of this test report are found descriptions of test cases which fit into this category.

Processor behavior on such test cases does not affect conformance to the XML 1.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation, except as noted.

4. Contributors (Non-normative)

A team of volunteer members have participated in the development of this work. Contributions have come from:

Murry Altheim, Sun Microsystems
Mary Brady, NIST
Tim Boland, NIST
David Brownell, Sun Microsystems
James Clark
Karin Donker, IBM
Irina Golfman, Inera Incorporated
Tony Graham, Mulberry Technologies
G. Ken Holman, Crane Softwrights Ltd
Alex Milowski, Veo Systems, Inc
Makota Murata, Fuji Xerox
Miles O'Reilly, Microstar Software, Ltd
Matt Timmermans, Microstar Software, Ltd
Richard Rivello, NIST
Lynne Rosenthal, NIST
Brian Schellar, Chrystal Software
Bill Smith, Sun Microsystems
Trevor Veary, Software AG
Eric Ye, IBM

End

Sections [Rules]:
Test ID:
Entities:
Collection:

There is an output test associated with this input file.

OASIS XML Conformance SubcommitteeXML 1.0 Test Suite, Second EditionWorking Draft15 March 2001

Table of Contents

1. Introduction