Re: A question/point of interest
From: Liam Quinn (liam@htmlhelp.com)
Date: Tue, Sep 14 1999
Message-ID: <37DEBF1E.44C4D476@htmlhelp.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:33:18 -0400
From: Liam Quinn <liam@htmlhelp.com>
To: Staff <staff@pnl.gov>
CC: www-validator@w3.org
Subject: Re: A question/point of interest
Staff wrote:
>
> When validating some of our pages which included the code <BASE
> target="main"> I went through the W3C validator and passed with flying
> colors. However running the pages through a HomeSite validator pointed
> out that BASE has href as a required attribute. Checking the HTML 4
> spec I find:
>
> <!ELEMENT BASE - O EMPTY -- document base URI -->
> <!ATTLIST BASE
> href %URI; #REQUIRED -- URI that acts as base URI --
> >
That's for HTML 4.0 Strict. HTML 4.0 Transitional specifies
<!ELEMENT BASE - O EMPTY -- document base URI -->
<!ATTLIST BASE
href %URI; #IMPLIED -- URI that acts as base URI --
target %FrameTarget; #IMPLIED -- render in this frame --
>
So the HREF attribute is not required in HTML 4.0 Transitional (or HTML
4.0 Frameset).
If your document specifies an HTML 4.0 Transitional or HTML 4.0 Frameset
DTD (through your DOCTYPE [1]), then what you're seeing is a bug in the
Homesite "validator" (which AFAIK is not a real validator [2]).
[1] http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html
[2] http://arealvalidator.com/real-validation.html
--
Liam Quinn
A Real Validator for Windows, http://arealvalidator.com
Web Design Group, http://www.htmlhelp.com