PR Review on table model

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.3

11.2.1 The TABLE element

<!ELEMENT TABLE - - (CAPTION?, (COL*|COLGROUP*), THEAD?, TFOOT?, TBODY+)>

I continue to believe that (COL | COLGROUP)* would be more appropriate.
The existing form forces all colgroups if any, so a "special rule" may
be necessary to redundantly recognize a colgroup with only one col for
special treatment by a stylesheet.

The header scope is either colgroup or col, and colgroup is non-recursive,
so there is not so convenient way to have subsidiary groups of columns in
a colgroup share a header.

in 11.2.4:

"Otherwise, if the TABLE element contains no COLGROUP or COL elements, user 
agents should base the number of columns on what is required by the rows. 
The number of columns is equal to the number of columns required by the row 
with the most columns, including cells that span multiple columns. For any 
row that has fewer than this number of columns, the end of that row should 
be padded with empty cells. The "end" of a row depends on the table 
directionality. "

Above should explicitly identify how cells in rows that have prior rows
with cells row-spanning into it are skipped over.

Regards/Harvey Bingham
W3C WAI invited expert

Received on Friday, 7 January 2000 19:08:27 UTC