HTML 4.01: Erratum "N-1" is suspected in COL element description.

Dear Sirs,

To be brief, the specification’s page 
«http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.4.2» 
says:

“If the span attribute is set to N > 1, the current COL element shares 
its attributes with the next N-1 columns.”

The question is, ‘Why it is set to «N-1» and not just to N columns?’ For 
instance, on the same subject, an HTML 5.2 specification says at point 
«10.1.3» («https://www.w3.org/TR/html52/tabular-data.html#table-model»):

“Columns: If the current column ‘col’ element has a span attribute, then 
parse its value using the rules for parsing non-negative integers (MY 
NOTE: The rules partly typed here, below).

If the result of parsing the value is not an error or zero, then let 
‘span’ be that value”.

FROM RULES FOR PARSING NON-NEGATIVE INTEGERS 
(«https://www.w3.org/TR/html52/infrastructure.html#parse-that-attributes-value»):

“
1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let value be the result of parsing input using the rules for parsing 
integers.

3. If value is an error, return an error.

4. If value is less than zero, return an error.

5. Return value.
”

Regards.

Received on Saturday, 18 July 2020 11:35:10 UTC