Re: Question about Data Tables

> I'm developing a data table interpreter. I almost done with it, but I'm
> a little stumped on what to do about table headers that haven't been
> given a scope or id/header association.

Possibly the next step (after col, colgroup, thead and tfoot) is to look at
elements around it. I'd hazard a guess that if there's table data in the
same row, either immediately before or immediately after the th, then the
scope of the header could be row. If there's table data in the corresponding
cell on the previous or next row, then the scope may be col.

There are probably quite a few exceptions to these pointers.

> My first inclination was to have scope="col" be the default behavior,
> but I've run into instances where scope="row" is assumed as well. Is
> the user agent expected to guess in these situations?

Seems that way :(

> This is going to be part of a validator, so I'm not interested in error-
> handling; I want to know what is expected from a standards perspective.

I don't believe there's anything further defined after scope header and id
attributes. Although there's still the colgroup / col elements that could
allow grouping. Correspondingly, the thead and tbody give inklings to col
type scopes.


Mike.

Received on Tuesday, 22 April 2003 05:55:36 UTC