Re: Link testing methodology

[Arlen P Walker <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com>]

There are any number of tools available for testing links, but they only test 
for valid links, not correct ones.

Your best bet might be to work up a Perl routine which creates a two-column 
table of link text and URL (I'm assuming you're talking about URL's when you're 
referring to links, and that you're testing HTML pages) from your pages, which 
can later be brought into another application and sorted. This can give you a 
rough idea of what your links are and can show you when obviously wrong text is 
linked to a specific URL. (You can base this off of link-finder/checker 
routines written in Perl, or write one yourself from scratch if you've the time 
and ability.) You might also make this a three-column table and put the file 
name in the third column, to aid you in fixing the problems you find.

This, of course, won't tell you if you've missed linking text you should have 
linked, but that is probably better off caught in general proofreading, anyway.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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