command line arguments
essential command line
The basic command line is: ssc folder, which tells ssc to nitpick the static website found in folder.
Naturally, ssc has many switches to allow you to precisely control how and what you want it to do. Most switches are unnecessary except in particular circumstances. The essential switches are:
| -h | output a list of switches |
| -f file | configuration is in ‘file’ |
| -v info | output info nitpicks, and worse |
| -R 5.2 | the site was written for HTML 5.2 |
| -s our.internal | the site is for the domain ‘our.internal’ |
all arguments
These options are available on the command line (with dashes) and in configuration files (without dashes). The short form single minus switches only work on the command line.
Most binary options that turn on a feature (which may be the default), have a corresponding no- switch to turn it off. The no- is inserted after the dot, so, for example, the contradiction to general.noh is general.no-noh. When both are specified, perhaps in a configuration file and on the command line, the no- switch applies.
Switches are documented as follows:
| corpus | output XML for a local search engine |
| CSS | CSS version, which modules to verify |
| env | environment variables |
| HTML | HTML version and related switches |
| link | link checking |
| MathML | MathML versions |
| microformat | microformat.org content |
| misc | other switches |
| nits | control nits |
| ontology | check ontologies, and specify versions |
| RDFa | specify RDFa version |
| shadow | output a ‘tidied up’ copy of the site |
| shell | command line only switches |
| site | information about the website being tested |
| spell | spell checking |
| stats | server side includes |
| stats | output stats. on the site |
| SVG | SVG version |
| validate | additional valid values for attributes & properties |
Additional configuration information can be found in:
| config | Configuration file options and format |
| env | Environment variables |
| output | Precisely control output format |
exit status
If no significant nits are found, ssc exits with 0. Otherwise it exits with a value > 0. This is controlled with the general.error switch.
examples
To verify the version of ssc: ssc -V
To check a static web side source directory:
ssc /home/site/wwwroot
To check a static HTML/XHTML website for example.com, that uses server
side includes, in the current directory, with verification of external
links, with rather verbose output:
ssc -e -I -x html -x shtml -s example.com -v 5 -i index.shtml
To check a static web side in the current directory, with a virtual
directory, verifying microformats:
ssc -L virtual=/home/site/virtual -M
To check a static web site using a configuration file:
ssc -f config.file
Dylan Harris
November 2024