Once you’ve built LibTidy following the README instructions for CMake in HTML Tidy’s repository, you can get started using LibTidy. CMake will have built both the console application and the library for you.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand how to use LibTidy is to see a simple program that implements it. Such a simple program follows in the next section, and don't forget that you can also study console/tidy.c, too.

Before we look at the code, it’s important to understand that API functions that return an integer almost universally adhere to the following convention:

0 == Success, good to go.

1 == Warnings, but no errors. Check the error buffer or track error messages for details.

2 == Errors (and maybe warnings). By default, Tidy will not produce output. You can force output with the TidyForceOutput option. As with warnings, check the error buffer or track error messages for details.

<0 == Severe error. Usually the value equals -errno. See errno.h.

Also, by default, warning and error messages are sent to stderr. You can redirect diagnostic output using either tidySetErrorFile() or tidySetErrorBuffer(). See tidy.h for details.