Validate ~/.XCompose

Question

I'm working on creating my own compose key sequences in ~/.XCompose. As I add more and more sequences, occasionally I make typos or use the same sequence for different symbols.

Examples:

Typo / Non-Existent Codes

<Multi_key> <non-existent-keysym> : other-non-existent-keysym

Full Collision

<Multi_key> <a> <b> : x      # overrule by 2nd rule
<Multi_key> <a> <b> : y

Prefix Collisions

<Multi_key> <a> <b> <c> : y 
<Multi_key> <a> <b> : x      # overruled by 1st rule

Question

Is there a command that validates my ~/.XCompose file. Minimum requirement is a binary answer: Either »your XCompose is error free« or »your XCompose contains errors«. In case there are errors, a helpful error message like »collision for rule sequence prefix « would be welcome.

What I Tried

I created ~/.XCompose containing all errors from above and opened a text editor. The text editor shows no errors (on the console). Correct and non-overruled sequences work, all other sequences are ignored.

I read man 5 XCompose. In the documentation itself I found nothing helpful. I looked at the references at the end of man 5 XCompose. Only mkcomposecache(1) looks promising (judging from the googled manpage), but seems to be missing on my system (Linux Mint 18.3). Neither man -k mkcomposecache nor apt search mkcomposecache find anything.

Edit: As @quixotic suggested, I compiled mkcomposecache from the sources and ran it, but its exits status is 1, no matter what compose file I choose (with or without errors). There is no error message. No cache is generated. Example of how I call the program:

$ mkcomposecache en_US.UTF-8 /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose /tmp/
* XOpenDisplay: Success
$ echo $?
1

The file /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose is Ubuntu's original compose file and should be error free. I guess there is a reason why it is not packaged in the Ubuntu and Arch Linux repositories.

I doubt that mkcomposecache is what I need, even if it would work.

Answer 1

I reverse engineered this extension and made it into a little web app.

You can use it here: https://jsfiddle.net/9p1s60of/

Here's an image of the tool in action:

Answer 2

A bit crude, but you could just quickly hack something together using associative arrays, with e.g. awk:

For an input file like

<Multi_key> <a> <t> : y
<Multi_key> <a> <g> : y
<Multi_key> <a> <b> : x
<Multi_key> <a> <b> : y
<Multi_key> <a> <x> <c> : y 
<Multi_key> <a> <x> : x
<Multi_key> <a> <g> : Q
<Multi_key> <a> <n> : y

this command

awk '!d[$2][$3]{d[$2][$3]=1;next} {print $0 " PROBLEM!"}' myFile

will output

<Multi_key> <a> <b> : y PROBLEM!
<Multi_key> <a> <x> : x PROBLEM!
<Multi_key> <a> <g> : Q PROBLEM!

To also see the line it conflicts with:

awk 'c=d[$2][$3]{print $0 " COLLISION: " c;next} {d[$2][$3]=$0}' myFile

Result:

<Multi_key> <a> <b> : y COLLISION: <Multi_key> <a> <b> : x
<Multi_key> <a> <x> : x COLLISION: <Multi_key> <a> <x> <c> : y
<Multi_key> <a> <g> : Q COLLISION: <Multi_key> <a> <g> : y