Validate XML

A malformed XML document fails silently in some parsers and catastrophically in others, usually at the exact moment you least expect it. Validate XML catches the problem before it reaches production: it parses your document and reports either a clean bill of health with structural statistics, or a precise error with the line and column where the parser stopped.

For healthy documents the tool reports the root element, element and attribute counts, text nodes and maximum nesting depth — useful for sanity-checking exports and catching accidental duplication. An optional entity check flags ampersands that are not part of a valid entity reference. All of this runs locally in your browser, so sensitive or proprietary XML never leaves your machine.

• Well-formedness check via the platform XML parser — the same engine most browsers and tools use.
• Precise error reporting: parser message plus the line and column where the failure occurred.
• Structural statistics for healthy documents: elements, attributes, text nodes and maximum depth.
• Root element identification — confirm the document starts with the expected top-level tag.
• Declaration detection — note whether an encoding declaration is present.
• Optional entity audit: flags unescaped ampersands outside & and friends.
• Plain-text report you can copy, download or print to PDF as evidence.
• Live checking: revalidate as you type with Live enabled.
• Instant feedback on document size as you work.
• Fully local — nothing is uploaded.

1. Paste your XML or open a file.
2. Toggle the entity audit if you want unescaped ampersands flagged.
3. Run Validate — or leave Live on to recheck as you type.
4. Read the report. A VALID status includes root element and structural counts; an INVALID status gives the reason, line and column.
5. Copy, download or print the report if you need a record.

Example 1 — Pre-deployment config check. Before shipping a configuration file that must parse on every node, run it through the validator to catch an unclosed element or an unescaped ampersand.

Example 2 — ETL pipeline debugging. A feed that intermittently breaks the pipeline is almost always one malformed document. Paste the failing file, read the line and column, and fix the producer rather than the consumer.

Example 3 — Export sanity check. Confirm a generated export has the expected root element and record counts before it is ingested downstream.

Example 4 — Teaching and review. When reviewing code that builds XML by string concatenation, run the output through the validator to prove correctness rather than assume it.

• Catch errors early — before a bad document reaches a parser that fails at runtime.
• Actionable diagnostics — line and column turn a vague failure into a one-line fix.
• Structural insight — counts and depth help you sanity-check exports and imports.
• Fully local and private — safe for proprietary and regulated data.
• Free and unlimited — no sign-up, no limits.