From: "Nick Kew" <nick@webthing.com> > > Therefore the answer to the question "what should an XPointer into HTML look > > like?" is a very loud "it depends". > > Indeed. It depends on defining a canonical normalisation of HTML. > If we can do that, we're fine. And what I said is: that is a minefield onto which we [the HTML working group] do not want to step. Real-world HTML documents are jokingly called "tag soup" for a reason. You take a goodly collection of HTML tags, stir them up, put them into a file, and publish it on the web. <style> elements before the <html> tag; <titles> outside the <head>; misspelled closing tags, misspelled opening tags, <ul>s with no enclosed <li>s; <li>s outside <ul>s. Imagine a combination of tags, you will find a document that contains that combination. Even Tidy throws up its hands sometimes, and instructs you to go back and change the source file! Finding a canonical normalisation of real-world HTML documents is not something the HTML WG feels inclined to spend its scarce time on. Best wishes, Steven PembertonReceived on Wednesday, 10 April 2002 07:14:56 GMT
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