Parse html files in a directory and check if they are badly formed in Python

Question

I am hoping to write a script that will go through a directory and check if the html files are badly formed. Please see my code

directory = "html"
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(directory):
    for file in files:
        if str(file).endswith('.html'):
              #Help needed here
              if file is badly formed:
                 print "Badly Formed"
              else:
                 print "Well Formed"

just to note I'm not looking to fix the html, I just want to know if it is badly formed — Ruth, Jun 12 '12 at 17:47
uhm....Your asking for us to write your code *for* you...Also, whats your definition of "Badly formed"? — IT Ninja, Jun 12 '12 at 17:48
Does 'Badly Formed" mean the file extension is not '.html'? Or does the script have to check the contents of the file? — tabchas, Jun 12 '12 at 17:52
Badly placed closing tags etc. I'm not asking for someoen to write the code but if I was pointed in the write direction — Ruth, Jun 12 '12 at 17:52
Does this help? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35538/validate-xhtml-in-python — Eric Finn, Jun 12 '12 at 17:55

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 12 '12 at 18:32

1

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ETree
....

    try:
        self.doc = ETree.parse( file )
        # do stuff with it ...
    except  ETree.ParseError :
        print( "ERROR in {0} : {1}".format( ETree.ParseError.filename, ETree.ParseError.msg ) )

answered Jun 12 '12 at 18:32

corn3lius

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Note that this only works if the HTML is also valid XML which is not necessarily the case. For a simple example, include any javascript scripts that have quotes or less than signs. – Steven W. Klassen Feb 21 '20 at 18:33

Parse html files in a directory and check if they are badly formed in Python

1 Answers1