parsing of scripts

Like many other web designers, I produce html pages that utilise many of the available browser technologies, whilst still keeping a careful eye on cross-browser compatibility. As a software engineer, I'd like to develop these pages to a set standard, and the W3C validation service offers just such an opportunity - well done to all involved !

 However, I am having trouble getting my work validated. I am curious about how the contents of script tags are delt with - this is the source of failures for some of the pages I have been trying to get validated.

An example url is:   http://www.afcea.org.uk/test/contents.html

This is a contents frame, using heavy DHTML usage. The validator seems to be complaining about the following type of code:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
   document.write ('<some really long tag ');
   document.write ('with lots of data></tag>');
// -->
</script>

This worries me, because surely the validator should be ignoring all content between <script> and </script>, for two reasons:
  1.) It's a script. It could be absolutely any langauge, containing any syntax.
  2.) It's also within a valid SGML comment.

I could change each < and > character to escaped ASCII codes, but this would not work with Internet Explorer 3.

Is there some compelling reason why the contents of  script tags are parsed, or is it a failing of the validator s/w ?

many thanks,

--
Chris Nappin, INRI UK Ltd.
Tel: +44 (0)1703 760484 Fax: +44 (0)1703 760483 Web: www.inri.co.uk
INRI is a subsidiary of Logicon Inc, a Northrop Grumman Company.

Received on Friday, 12 March 1999 11:08:09 UTC