Help! how to check viminfo for errors?

I know my pleas are getting old for you veterans. But I am trying to make
.viminfo work for a blind friend, and he keeps getting more and more errors.

I've scoured both the usual and unusual documentation, the scripts library,
the web, and vim_use archives - and still can not find certain basic
information about the .viminfo file, and how different versions of vim
interact with it. The usual advice is to delete the file, losing all one's
mark info., if it corrupts.

Most error messages seem to be spawned by vim making a simple format error
when writing this file. For example, an initial > ls left out of a line that
specifies a new filname and path. Or, a tab is missing in setting a mark,
i.e., there is a line like this

z^I13^I2

instead of,

^Iz^I13^I2

When I manually edit each wrong viminfo line, the error messages disappear.
Has anyone written a description of the required format for this file? Is
there some script that can check the file for format errors and/or fix them?

Apparently, vim does not dynamically check much for the current state of a
file when it updates (overwrites) viminfo.

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