HXL schemas

The hxlvalidate command-line tool validates a HXL dataset against a simple, spreadsheet-style schema. This article describes the schema format.

Schema hashtags

The schema is itself a HXL dataset, using the following hashtags:

#x_tag	(Required) The name of the tag, including the "#" character (e.g. "#sector").
#x_minoccur_num	The minimum number of times a non-empty value for the tag must appear in each row of the dataset. Defaults to no minimum.
#x_maxoccur_num	The maximum number of times a non-empty value for the tag may appear in each row of the dataset. Defaults to no maximum.
#x_datatype	The type of data expected in the column under the HXL tag. Currently-allowed values are "text", "number", "url", "email", and "phone" ("date" coming soon). Defaults to no type checking.
#x_minvalue_num	The minimum value allowed when `#x_datatype` is "number". Defaults to no minimum value. Ignored for non-numeric datatypes.
#x_maxvalue_num	The maximum value allowed when `#x_datatype` is "number". Defaults to no maximum value. Ignored for non-numeric datatypes.
#x_pattern	A regular expression pattern that value must match (e.g. "^([0-9])(,[0-9])*$").
#x_enumeration	A list of allowed values, separated by "\|" (e.g. "female\|male").
#x_caseinsenstive	"1" if matches for patterns and enumerations should be case-insensitive.

Here is a simple sample schema:

#x_tag	#x_minoccur_num	#x_maxoccur_num	#x_datatype	#x_enumeration
#org	1		text
#sector	1	1	text	WASH\|Health\|Education\|CCCM\|Protection
#subsector			text
#country	1	1	text	Guinea\|Liberia\|Sierra Leone
#adm1			text

You could validate a dataset against this schema using the following command:

hxlvalidate --schema MYSCHEMA.csv MYDATASET.csv > errors.txt