xmllint --noout <file> will check the file and report any issues with XML syntax in a very detailed way with line numbers for you to see. I myself don't even u

xmllint --noout <file> will check the file and report any issues with XML syntax in a very detailed way with line numbers for you to see. I myself don't even use syntax highlighting and normally work in vim and although I do make errors in XML sometimes, I find that I make at least as many syntactic errors in Python or C code that I have to weed out before I can proceed. But I never heard anyone complaining about Python or C being too strict :)