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Tools for Contributors¶

You don't need much to contribute to the Apache HTTP Server documentation — a text editor and SVN will get you started. But the right tools can make the workflow smoother, especially if XML or SVN are new to you.

Everything here is optional. Use whatever works for you.

Text Editors¶

The documentation is written in XML, so an editor with XML support makes life easier — syntax highlighting, auto-closing tags, and validation feedback help catch mistakes early.

• VS Code with the XML extension — good highlighting, schema validation, and auto-completion. Free and cross-platform.
• Emacs with nxml-mode — excellent built-in XML editing with real-time validation against the DTD. Ships with Emacs.
• Vim with XML plugins (e.g., vim-xml, xmledit) — tag matching and completion for Vim users.
• Any editor — the XML format is readable plain text. If you're comfortable in your editor, it will work fine.

SVN Clients¶

The command-line svn client is what most contributors use, and it's what our workflow documentation assumes. It's available on all platforms:

• Command-line svn (recommended) — ships with most Linux distributions. On macOS, install via Homebrew (brew install svn). On Windows, available via SlikSVN or TortoiseSVN (which includes command-line tools).
• TortoiseSVN (Windows) — integrates with Windows Explorer. Good if you prefer a GUI, but command-line is still recommended for generating patches.
• svnX (macOS) — a macOS GUI for SVN. Useful for browsing history and viewing diffs visually.

See the SVN workflow page for checkout and patch instructions.

XML Validation¶

Always validate your XML before submitting. Malformed XML breaks the build for everyone.

• The Ant build targets — the official way. From your docs/manual/build/ directory:

  ./build.sh validate-xml
  ./build.sh validate-xhtml
  

• xmllint (from libxml2) — quick command-line validation:

  xmllint --noout --valid docs/manual/mod/mod_rewrite.xml
  

  Available on most systems (brew install libxml2 on macOS, usually pre-installed on Linux).

Viewing Your Changes¶

• Browser XSLT — modern browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari) can render the XML files directly by applying the XSLT stylesheet. Just open the .xml file in your browser for a quick preview.

• The Ant build — for the authoritative rendering, build the HTML:

  cd docs/manual/build
  ./build.sh
  

  Then open the generated HTML files in your browser.

Diff and Merge Tools¶

For comparing revisions and reviewing changes:

• svn diff — built into SVN, always available. Produces unified diffs on the command line.
• Meld — visual three-way diff/merge tool. Free, cross-platform. Excellent for comparing your translation against updated English source.
• vimdiff — Vim's built-in diff mode. Fast and keyboard-driven.
• Beyond Compare — commercial, but powerful for large comparison tasks.
• VS Code — built-in diff viewer works well for side-by-side comparison of two files.

Regex Testing (for mod_rewrite docs)¶

If you're working on mod_rewrite documentation, these tools help verify that regex examples are correct:

• regex101.com — interactive regex tester with explanation. Select the PCRE2 flavor for httpd-compatible patterns.
• RegExr — another visual regex tool with a good reference panel.
• pcre2test — command-line PCRE2 testing. The definitive tool for verifying patterns exactly as httpd processes them.
• grex — generates regex patterns from example strings. Useful for verifying that a documented pattern matches what you expect.

AI Assistants¶

AI coding assistants (GitHub Copilot, Claude, etc.) can help with XML markup if you're not familiar with the format — they're good at generating boilerplate tags, converting plain text to properly marked-up XML, and suggesting element structures.

However: Always review AI-generated markup carefully. These tools can produce plausible-looking but incorrect XML, use wrong element names, or miss project-specific conventions. Human review is always needed. When in doubt, check the style guide.

Apache httpd Docs MCP Server¶

The Apache httpd docs MCP server lets you query the documentation programmatically — search directives, look up module details, and browse pages via AI assistants or scripts. Useful for quickly finding related documentation when writing new content or checking cross-references.

Summary¶