HOWTO validate links

link validation in markdown documents

VS Code introduced a link validator in version 1.72. This seems the best approach while a single file is being edited due to automated "fix all supported markdownlint violations in the document" (see below for more details).

For bulk validation https://github.com/webhintio/markdown-link-validator seems best

findings for bulk validation

• debug mode is extremely helpful for troubleshooting
• it's incredible fast
• should work cross-platform (tried on Windows & WSL Debian)
• https://www.te.com/usa-en/ seems to block or throttle access via an automated script after a certain number of requests

  markdown-link-validator:utils:request problem with request: connect ETIMEDOUT 2a01:4f8:221:3b0a:1000:0:19:200:443 - https://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/cable/RS-232.html +21s
  markdown-link-validator:utils:request problem with request: read ECONNRESET - https://www.te.com/usa-en/product-4-1437290-1.html +1m

solution

• use exclude list for batch validation, skip all external links

markdown-link-validator . -i https?:\/\/.* --debug >.\wiki-tools\md_link_validation.log
...
Found a total of 1361 links in directory "C:\Users\mholzer\Documents\git\rusefi_documentation":
    1298 valid
    63 invalid
Time to validate: 1.07s

open issue(s)

• would like to have only "invalid" references in output. There is already an enhancement request filed since Aug 2019 :(
• requested to assign committer

workaround

• edit output log file to find "invalid" references quickly

1. find all strings containing " 0 invalid" (note leading blank) and replace them with "nothing"
2. find all strings containing "invalid" => only actually erroneous links with show

using a "quick fix" version

https://github.com/chmac/markdown-link-validator/commits/omit-success-output has a quick fix

note: as of 2022-12-13 the method to install: did NOT work for me, trying to get help!!

npm install --save chmac/markdown-link-validator#omit-success-output

to run:

node .\node_modules\markdown-link-validator\dist\src\bin\markdown-link-validator.js . -i https?:\/\/.* --debug

using VS Code for markdown files

prerequisites

VS Code Extensions "markdownlint" and "Code Spell Checker" have to be installed