DOKK / manpages / debian 10 / stilts / stilts-taplint.1.en
STILTS-TAPLINT(1) Stilts commands STILTS-TAPLINT(1)

stilts-taplint - Tests TAP services

stilts taplint [tapurl=<url-value>] [stages=TMV|TME|TMS|TMC|CPV|CAP|AVV|QGE|QPO|QAS|UWS|MDQ|OBS|UPL|EXA[ ...]] [maxtable=<int-value>] [format=text|json] [report=[EWISF]+] [maxrepeat=<int-value>] [truncate=<int-value>] [debug=true|false] [syncurl=<url-value>] [asyncurl=<url-value>] [tablesurl=<url-value>] [capabilitiesurl=<url-value>] [availabilityurl=<url-value>] [examplesurl=<url-value>]

taplint runs a series of tests on a Table Access Protocol (TAP) service and reports the results. Unlike most of the other tools in this package it is not likely to be of use to normal users; its intended use is for people developing or operating TAP services to assess their services, perhaps with a view to improving compliance.

Testing takes place in a number of stages; it is possible to choose which stages are run in by using the stages parameter. The default output (format=text) is line-based text to standard output, and each report line is of the (fairly greppable) form: T-SSS-MMMMxN aaaaa... where the parts have the following meanings:

  • T: Report type, one of E(rror), W(arning), I(nfo), S(ummary), F(ailure). See the documentation of the report parameter for further description of what these mean. The report parameter can be used to suppress some of these; only E indicates actual service compliance errors, but including the others may make it easier to see what's going on.
  • SSS: Stage abbreviation, as used in the stages parameter. The stages parameter can be used to select which stages are run.
  • MMMM: Message label, which is always the same for messages generated by the same test, is usually different for messages generated by different tests, and may be somewhat mnemonic.
  • x: Continuation indicator, either "-" or "+". In most cases it is "-", indicating the first line of a message, but multi-line messages (rare) use "-" for the first line and "+" for any continuation lines.
  • N: Sequence number, which is 1 for the first time message T-SSS-MMMM is reported, and increases by one for each subsequent appearance. After a certain maximum (determined by the maxrepeat parameter) additional reports with the same code are no longer output individually, but a summary of the number of reports so discarded is written at the end of the section with the character "x" instead of the sequence number. This behaviour prevents the output being swamped by multiple reports of the same issue. If the maxrepeat parameter is increased above 9, more than one digit will be used here (so e.g. for maxrepeat=999, the format would be NNN not N).
  • aaaaa...: Message text, a free text description of what is being reported.

If you don't like that format, others may be selected using the format parameter, which currently also supports JSON. For more flexible interaction with the output you can invoke taplint programmatically and supply your own instance.

TAP is a complicated beast, referencing many standards (including TAP, UWS, VODataService, ADQL, VOResource, VOSI, TAPRegExt, DALI, ObsCore, VOTable, HTTP, RDFa Lite), and it is hard to write a validator which is comprehensive, especially one which can provide useful output for services with a range of compliance levels. This tool tries to make a wide range of tests, but does not claim to be comprehensive. An idea of what tests it does perform can be gained from the stages listed in the description of the stages parameter. It does make a fairly good job of checking that declared metadata is consistent and matches the data actually returned from queries, and it tests job submission in most of the various ways permitted by the TAP standard. Things it does not test much include complex ADQL queries, coordinate/STC-related data types, queries in non-ADQL languages, and service registration.

The base URL of a Table Access Protocol service. This is the bare URL without a trailing "/[a]sync".

The default values of the various endpoints (sync and async query submission, tables metadata, service-provided examples etc) use this URL as a parent and append standard sub-paths. However, other parameters (syncurl, asyncurl, ...) are provided so that the different endpoints can be set individually if required.

Lists the validation stages which the validator will perform. Each stage is represented by a short code, as follows:

  • TMV: Validate table metadata against XML schema (on)
  • TME: Check content of tables metadata from /tables (on)
  • TMS: Check content of tables metadata from TAP_SCHEMA (on)
  • TMC: Compare table metadata from /tables and TAP_SCHEMA (on)
  • CPV: Validate capabilities against XML schema (on)
  • CAP: Check content of TAPRegExt capabilities record (on)
  • AVV: Validate availability against XML schema (on)
  • QGE: Make ADQL queries in sync GET mode (on)
  • QPO: Make ADQL queries in sync POST mode (on)
  • QAS: Make ADQL queries in async mode (on)
  • UWS: Test asynchronous UWS/TAP behaviour (on)
  • MDQ: Check table query result columns against declared metadata (on)
  • OBS: Test implementation of ObsCore Data Model (on)
  • UPL: Make queries with table uploads (on)
  • EXA: Check content of examples document (on)

You can specify a list of stage codes, separated by spaces. Order is not significant.

Note that removing some stages may affect the operation of others; for instance table metadata is acquired from the metadata stages, and avoiding those will mean that later stages that use the table metadata to pose queries will not be able to do so with knowledge of the database schema.

Limits the number of tables from the service that will be tested. Currently, this only affects stage MDQ. If the value is left blank (the default), or if it is larger than the number of tables actually present in the service, it will have no effect.

Determines the format of the output. Possible values are text, json.

Note not all of the other parameters may be applicable to all output formats.

Letters indicating which message types should be listed. Each character of the string is one of the letters E, W, I, S, F with the following meanings:

  • E: Error in operation or standard compliance of the service.
  • W: Warning that service behaviour is questionable, or contravenes a standard recommendation, but is not in actual violation of the standard.
  • I: Information about progress, for instance details of queries made.
  • S: Summary of previous successful/unsuccessful reports.
  • F: Failure of the validator to perform some testing. The cause is either some error internal to the validator, or some error or missing functionality in the service which has already been reported.

Puts a limit on the number of times that a single message will be repeated. By setting this to some reasonably small number, you can ensure that the output does not get cluttered up by millions of repetitions of essentially the same error.

Limits the line length written to the output.

If true, debugging output including stack traces will be output along with the normal validation messages.

Sets the URL to use for the sync endpoint of the TAP service. By default, this would be <tapurl>/sync but you can set this parameter to some other location if required. If left blank, the default value is used.

Sets the URL to use for the async endpoint of the TAP service. By default, this would be <tapurl>/async but you can set this parameter to some other location if required. If left blank, the default value is used.

Sets the URL to use for the tables endpoint of the TAP service. By default, this would be <tapurl>/tables but you can set this parameter to some other location if required. If left blank, the default value is used.

Sets the URL to use for the capabilities endpoint of the TAP service. By default, this would be <tapurl>/capabilities but you can set this parameter to some other location if required. If left blank, the default value is used.

Sets the URL to use for the availability endpoint of the TAP service. By default, this would be <tapurl>/availability but you can set this parameter to some other location if required. If left blank, the default value is used.

Sets the URL to use for the examples endpoint of the TAP service. By default, this would be <tapurl>/examples but you can set this parameter to some other location if required. If left blank, the default value is used.

stilts(1)

If the package stilts-doc is installed, the full documentation SUN/256 is available in HTML format:
file:///usr/share/doc/stilts-doc/sun256/index.html

STILTS version 3.1-5-debian

This is the Debian version of Stilts, which lack the support of some file formats and network protocols. For differences see
file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/README.Debian

Mark Taylor (Bristol University)

Mar 2017