- From: Albert Lunde <albert-lunde@nwu.edu>
- Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 20:26:32 CDT
- To: wahlen@ph-cip.Uni-Koeln.DE
- Cc: www-html@w3.org
> > The HTML 2.0 specification contained the following in the > description of DL: > > | The content of a <DL> element is a sequence of <DT> elements > | and/or <DD> elements, usually in pairs. Multiple <DT> may be > | paired with a single <DD> element. Documents should not > | contain multiple consecutive <DD> elements. > > Nevertheless, the declaration in the DTD was > <!ELEMENT DL - - (DT | DD)+>, > allowing an arbitrary sequence. This declaration has remained > unchanged in 3.2 and also in the 4.0 draft, whereas the > respective texts don't contain the precise remarks about > element repetitions any more: The 3.2 spec just gives an > example for such a list, nothing more, the draft says that > "list items consist of two parts: an initial label and a > description", but still fails to explain precisely which > sequence is recommended, allowed or required. > > Does that mean that any order is now considered `proper', or > has that part just been overlooked when the specs were > written? If the latter, why isn't the "should not" from the > quote above made a "must not" by choosing (DT+, DD)+ as the > content (which would, in addition, eliminate the possibility > of a DD as the first element in such a list)? I think the form of this part the HTML 2.0 DTD was discussed on the IETF html-wg list. I don't recall the details but I think it was a deliberate decision at that time, perhaps to follow pre-existing practice. -- Albert Lunde Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu
Received on Friday, 25 July 1997 21:26:37 UTC