Next message: Alexander Shpack: "image name/id"
From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net>
To: emeyer@netscape.com (Eric Meyer)
Cc: www-validator@w3.org, bclary@netscape.com
Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2001 01:57:27 +0200
Message-ID: <hcccktsddn9ojgptjc636jsrl1sichd0ug@4ax.com>
Subject: Re: Error in validator?
* Eric Meyer wrote:
>>[...]
>That seems to me like an unacceptable behavior.
See section 19.1 of HTML 4.01:
"Beware that such validation, although useful and highly recommended,
does not guarantee that a document fully conforms to the HTML 4
specification. This is because an SGML parser relies solely on the
given SGML DTD which does not express all aspects of a valid HTML 4
document. Specifically, an SGML parser ensures that the syntax, the
structure, the list of elements, and their attributes are valid. But
for instance, it cannot catch errors such as setting the width
attribute of an IMG element to an invalid value (i.e., "foo" or
"12.5"). Although the specification restricts the value for this
attribute to an "integer representing a length in pixels," the DTD
only defines it to be CDATA, which actually allows any value. Only a
specialized program could capture the complete specification of HTML
4.
Nevertheless, this type of validation is still highly recommended
since it permits the detection of a large set of errors that make
documents invalid."
>At any rate, either the specification needs to be clarified via an
>official errata so that IDs are made case-insensitive, or else the
>validator needs to fall in line with the language in the specification.
Not possible, as Masayusa already pointed out.
>At a bare minimum, there should be an "explanation..." link from this
>error message which points to the reasons behind it being given, so that
>authors can understand the error and make up their own minds about what
>they should do. This will at least remove the perception that the W3C is
>once again inconsistent in interpreting its own specifications.
Agreed, that should be done.
--
Björn Höhrmann { mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de } http://www.bjoernsworld.de
am Badedeich 7 } Telefon: +49(0)4667/981028 { http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
25899 Dagebüll { PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 } http://www.learn.to/quote/