It's very common for people to introduce XML syntax errors when manually editing .vcproj/.vsprops files (see, e.g., <http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/73914> and <http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/73921>). It would be nice to have a pre-commit hook that would check that these files are well-formed. Steve suggested using `xmllint --noout`.
Maybe this could be as early as svn-create-patch and/or style checker, in addition to commit hook.
This is possible, but is a pre-commit hook the right solution? If we wanted pre-commit hooks to verify our syntax, why not have a tool that lints xml as well as C++, Python, IDL, etc. In other words, why does XML linting need to block commits but not C++?
Here are some recent build fixes required after incorrect edits to WebCore.vcproj that would have been caught by an XML well-formedness check: http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/73887/trunk/WebCore/WebCore.vcproj/WebCore.vcproj http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/73773/trunk/WebCore/WebCore.vcproj/WebCore.vcproj http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/72795/trunk/WebCore/WebCore.vcproj/WebCore.vcproj Adding this to the style checker might be an ok place to start. This seems worse than a simple lint or style issue since these aren't stylistic problems (they're fatal errors). Not sure where the line is between pre-commit hook and style checker. We check for tabs in pre-commit hook for example.
Let's start with making check-webkit-style catch these errors, and then see if more is needed. I filed bug 51103.