This is the third in a series of blog posts aimed at documenting the development of an XCRI-CAP 1.2 validator. The entire series can be found by visiting the validator blog post list. My aim is to post a new blog post every week until the development is complete, then at least once every month to document both the usage of the validator as well as any community-highlighted modifications or issues.
This week the blog post will summarise the current state of the project and, hopefully, point people to resources they can use to research elements further. The development of the validator itself is broken down into several key sections and an overview of each section's current status is given below.
- Validation code (~95% done)
The underlying core validation code is almost complete, subject to any issues that come up in testing or any additional validators that are thrown up by the rulebase's QA processes. Automated testing of the core validation code is being done using the MSTest unit test projects within the solution. The current code can be cloned from the Google Code repository at . - XML rulebase (~90% complete)
The XML rulebase has undergone its first iteration and the rules that it validates are currently being checked by other members of the team. Once the rules themselves have been agreed, work will start on the the guidance that relates to the rules. The current version of the rulebase can be downloaded from . - Web interface (80% complete)
The web interface - to use the validation code online - is currently in its first iteration. The basic approach with the web site is to be simple and clean, allowing developers to easily get at the issues with the feeds and feedback so far has been positive. The current interface has been tested in the latest builds of Chrome and Firefox, as well as Internet Explorer 9 on a PC. - API (planning stage)
A RESTful API is currently being developed to allow the aggregator to integrate with the validation code. In its first implementation the API will support returning validation results via JSON. The API design has been planned with the aggregator team and the plan is for a mock implementation to be available to them within the next 7 days. The API itself will utilise the core validation code and the XML rulebase.
The XCRI-CAP 1.2 validation library and an online tool to validate feeds are expected to be completed by the end of February 2012.