IVOA Validation Capabilities

This page provides a comprehensive summary of the validation capabilities associated with published IVOA standards. Validators include any software which takes an entity purported to be compliant with one or more IVOA standards and tests this compliance. The entity may a string, a file, a library, or a on-line service. Generally validators may produce false positives, services which seem to pass the validator but which may still be non-compliant. Only limited tests are done and some semantic aspects of a protocol may not be amenable to automated testing. However false negatives, where a service fails even though it is compliant, should be rare and should be reported to the party responsible for the validator.

The following table indexes validators for all IVOA protocols. The protocol name is a link to the following detailed discussions of the validation state of each protocol. These include links to any online validation sites or standalone validation software.

App

SAMP

Validators:

• The JSAMP library/toolkit includes a fairly comprehensive set of validation tests ( hubtester ) for a SAMP Hub. In principle this can test both Standard and Web Profiles, though the web client is faked (it's not done from a browser). No SAMP client validator is included - such a thing wouldn't be able to do much, but could be a useful addition.

  • Type: Standalone
  • Link[s]: Download

VOTable

Validators:

• STILTS votlint provides comprehensive validation for VOTable 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, includes schema/DTD validation as well as much more stringent tests. Can be used standalone, but API has hooks for programmatic incorporation into other validators that need to validate VOTables (taplint does this).

  You can also validate against the VOTable schema (or for v1.0 the DTD) provided in the standard.

  • Type: Standalone, Library
  • Link[s]:

    Download page

    External XML Validation

MOC

Validators:

• Moc.jar 4.6 provides a validator method for MOC 1.0 REC. This validator is remotely usable via the MocServer servlet provided by CDS.
  
  • Type: Standalone library
    + Web
  • Link[s]:

    Jar file

    Web page

DAL

DALI

DALI provides a set of basic capabilities that all DAL services are to implement. DALI capabilities are sometimes tested inother validators but a specific separate test for DALI would be desirable.

DataLink

Cone Search

Cone search validators test that a service accepts standard inputs and that required fields are found in the VOTable outputs. Validators also test a limited number of error conditions

Validators:

• The HEASARC uses an NCSA-developed package and tests registered services monthly providing a Web site to view results and run tests interactively.
  
  • Type: Web, Testing framework
  • Link[s]:Web page

• VOParis provides a web site which allows a user to validate a specific service and to view the results of their daily validation of registered services.
  
  • Type: Web, Testing framework
  • Link[s]: WebPage

• ESA enables a user to validate a particular services and to see the results of their daily testing of registered services

  • Type: Web, Testing framework
  • Link[s]: Webpage
• AstroPy contains some kind of cone search validation client.
  • Type: Standalone
  • Link[s]: Download

SIA

SIA service validators check that a service accepts standard inputs and provides appropriate error responses in at least some situations. Most validators check only the initial VOTable response by the service.

Validators:

• For 1.0 uses NCSA developed library for checking results. In addition to checking initial VOTable responses, checks that first data link is valid and of appropriate type. SIA 2.0 uses VO-Paris validator but stores results at the HEASARC.

  Users can check individual services or see results of monthly validation.

  • Type: Web, Testing framework
  • Link[s]: Webpage
• VOParis provides a web site which allows a user to validate a specific service and to view the results of their daily validation of registered services
  • Type: Web, Testing framework
  • Link[s]: Web page
• ESA enables a user to validate a particular services and to see the results of their daily testing of registered services
  • Type: Web, Testing framework
  • Link[s]: Web page

SLA

SSA

TBD

STC-S

TAP

Validators:

• TAPLint provides an extensive set of tests of a TAP implementation including DALI, synchoronous and asynchronous queries and tests of a variety of error conditions. The various methods in which metadata for the TAP service is provided are compared for consistency. Errors, warnings and informative messages are provided. Users may configure the tests to be run. Tests of included ObsCore capabilities may be run.
  
  • Type: Standalone
  • Link[s]: Download
• The HEASARC's VO valdiation tool runs TAPLint on registered services are saves the results with a monthly cadence.
  • Type: Testing framework
  • Link[s]: Web page

TAPRegExt

Validators:

• STILTS taplint (CAP stage) checks TAPRegExt 1.0.
  • Type: Standalone
  • Link[s]: Download

ADQL

Validators:

• Gregory Mantelet's ADQL parser library identifies valid ADQL 2.0 queries.

  STILTS taplint issues a few ADQL 2.0 queries to TAP services and notes errors, but does not attempt comprehensive feature testing.

  (ADQL 1.0 is moribund)

  • Type:

    Library

    Standalone

  • Link[s]: Download

SkyNode

This protocol is no longer under active development

SimDAL

SODA

DaM

Photometry

Simulation

STC

Astronomical Dataset Characterization

Simple Spectral Lines

Spectral

ObsCore

Validators:

• STILTS taplint (OBS stage) does comprehensive testing that mandatory ObsCore elements are present, and mandatory/optional elements are as prescribed by the standard, in running TAP services. v1.0 in stilts public release, v1.1 currently in pre-release.
  • Type: Standalone
  • Link[s]:

    Download

    Jar file

Characterization: Complements and new features.

VO-DML

Dataset Metadata

N-d Cube/Image

GWS

Parameter Descripton Language

SSO

VOSpace

Credential Delegation

UWS

Validators:

• STILTS taplint (UWS stage) tests most but not all aspects of UWS 1.0 operation required from TAP services.

  • Type:
  • Link[s]: Download
• uws-validator: suite of tests created for testing UWS 1.1 features, but can do basic tests for UWS 1.0 as well (use --tags=-uws1_1 to exclude 1.1 specific tests). May still report false negatives, since it is quite strict.
  • Type: Standalone
  • Link[s]: Download
• CDS TBD
  • Type:
  • Link[s]:

ReR

Validators:

• This service implements the Identifiers 2.0 suggestion for how to resolve an IVOA publisher dataset identifier; that is, it tries to resolve the registry part to Datalink, SSAP, or Obscore capabilities and tries those to find access URLs. If that fails, it repeats this procedure for services that the base resource declares as served-by.
  • Type:

    Web,

    Standalone

  • Link[s]:Web page

    Download

OAI-PMH with IVOA extensions

(non-IVOA standard)

Validators:

• This Registry of Registries page validates entire registries. It implements an OAI 2.0 validator (using the OAI Explorer by Hussein Suleman) with additional IVOA-specific validation including the referential integrity of managed authorities, as well as validation of individual VOResources in the registry.
  • Type: Web
  • Link[s]: Web page

Registry Interfaces

Resource Metadata

StandardsRegExt

SimpleDALRegExt

VOResource

VODataService

RegTAP: Registry Relational Schema

Validators:

• GAVO has a suite of tests for a relational registry. This can be run on a specially prepared instance of RegTAP software, not on an operational RegTAP service.
  • Type: Standalone
  • Link[s]: Download

Sem

VOUnits

Validators:

• Unity is a C/Java library that parses/validates VOUnit expressions. It comes with a long list of test cases.
  
  • Type: Library
  • Link[s]: Download

UCDs

Validators:

• This web page provide some basic HTTP tools to validate, assign, translate, explain UCD1+
  • Type: Web
  • Link[s]: Web page

UCD Maintenance

Vocabularies

SDP

IVOA Document Standards

VOE

VOEvent

VOEventRegExt