Re: going to less and less version

On 22 Mar 2001, at 10:05, Eric Richards wrote:

> On the first line there is,
> -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN

Presuming that the rest of the DOCTYPE that contains this FPI (formal 
public identifier) is correctly formed, then this indicates that the 
content corresponds to the HTML 4.01 Transitional specification.  HTML 4.01 
Transitional is one of several HTML specifications that HTML Tidy 
recognizes.  Note that FPIs must exactly match the strings given in the 
associated HTML standards in order to comply with those standards.  


> SO I GET TIDY TO CHECK IT OVER, AND I GET THE MESSAGE BELOW
> 
> Tidy (vers 4th August 2000) Parsing "file.htm"
> 
> file.htm: Doctype given is "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"

This message is restating the FPI from the DOCTYPE in your file.


> file.htm: Document content looks like HTML 4.01 Transitional

This message is giving a *description* of the file content.  In other 
words, it is stating that the file appears to be HTML 4.01 of the 
transitional variety.  It is not restating the FPI.


> SO THEN I TAKE OFF "//EN" THEN IT SAYS
> 
> -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional

Now you have supplied an FPI that does not correspond to any of the HTML 
standards.  Therefore, Tidy attempts to determine the HTML standard 
employed by examining the content of your file.


> Tidy (vers 4th August 2000) Parsing "file.htm"
> 
> file.htm: Doctype given is "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional"
> file.htm: Document content looks like HTML 3.2

Tidy is reporting that you are employing HTML constructs that first 
appeared in HTML 3.2.  In other words, the earliest HTML standard that 
covers all of the tags and attributes used in your file is HTML 3.2.


> SO THEN I CHANGE 4.01 TO 3.2 AND GET THE NEXT MESSAGE.
> 
> Tidy (vers 4th August 2000) Parsing "file.htm"
> 
> file.htm: Doctype given is "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Transitional"

Again, this FPI does not correspond to any HTML standard, so Tidy must 
examine the contents to infer the standard used.  As the contents have not 
changed, Tidy again reports that it appears to be HTML 3.2.


> VERY STRANGE?

Not strange, but simply a misinterpretation of what Tidy is stating.  The 
first message reporting that "Document content looks like HTML 4.01 
Transitional" is informative; it's not a directive to change the FPI in the 
DOCTYPE.


> OR WAS IT A 3.2 ALL ALONG 

It was HTML 3.2 all along.  However, there are some HTML 3.2 documents that 
are also compliant with the HTML 4.01 specification, and for these 
documents, marking them as HTML 4.01 is valid as well and is recommended by 
the HTML 4.01 specification.

                                      -- Dave

Received on Thursday, 22 March 2001 01:14:39 UTC