Re: doctype ?

>> In theory, I suppose the browser should chuck pages out which don't
>> validate against the DTD you have set but in practice this would be
>> impracticle (90% of the web pages on the net wouldn't work :-)
>
> That is a lousy excuse. If the browsers DID check documents for
validity,
> 100% of the pages on the net would be conforming to standards, or
they
> wouldn't work.

I'm not using it as an excuse, I totally agree that in an ideal world
conforming documents would have been enforced from the start and
browsers would have no need to be "forgiving". All (X)HTML code I write
includes a DOCTYPE and is validated against it, but this is simply not
the case for the majority of authors. It's something which is getting
better and I look forward to the day when all documents are valid XML,
but the hard fact at the minute is that if the next release of the
browsers chucked documents out that were not valid then 90% of the web
pages on the net wouldn't work (and users wouldn't go anywhere near the
browsers).

We've just got to live with the situation as it is for now and do our
best to shepard it towards the way it "should" be, which is obviously
going to take time because the majority of people involved have other
prioritys (like making money).

Nigel

>>> "Lars Ingerman Haenschke" <www@prorion.com> 07/04/02 05:37pm >>>

I've done some testing with IE6 and it shows that the browser ignores
the <!DOCTYPE> declaration. It doesn't matter what you write in the
PUBLIC field, the result is the same.

I'm not sure if this is 100% correct, but I believe that the
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
part of the declaration should be enough for a standards conforming
application to validate your document.

If your application (e.g. browser) doesn't know the doctype, it should
validate your document based on the DTD:
"http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd"

With the doctype declaration:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

You document is saying to the browser: "This document is an XHTML 1.1
document, as specified by W3C. If you know this document type, go
ahead.
If not, then you can read the DTD at the specified location."

In theory, your browser should either have the DTD internally, or it
should
read the DTD from the specified location.

In practice, it looks like the browsers just doesn't care about DTD's.
But,
to insure compatibility with future browsers, you should always include
the
DOCTYPE declaration.

> In theory, I suppose the browser should chuck pages out which don't
> validate against the DTD you have set but in practice this would be
> impracticle (90% of the web pages on the net wouldn't work :-)

That is a lousy excuse. If the browsers DID check documents for
validity,
100% of the pages on the net would be conforming to standards, or they
wouldn't work.

Best regards,
Lars Ingerman Haenschke


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nigel Peck" <Nigel.Peck@itm-solutions.co.uk>
To: <Bob_Cieszkowski@Vanguard.com>; <www-html@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 04, 2002 3:14 PM
Subject: Re: doctype ?


> 
> This is not a definative answer, but I assume that the DTDs are
embedded
> in the browser software and there is never any need to refer to the
DTD.
> DTDs must be embedded in the browser by the fact that they are able
to
> understand (X)HTML.
> 
> In theory, I suppose the browser should chuck pages out which don't
> validate against the DTD you have set but in practice this would be
> impracticle (90% of the web pages on the net wouldn't work :-)
> 
> IMHO
> Nigel
> 
> >>> <Bob_Cieszkowski@Vanguard.com> 07/01/02 08:10pm >>>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi. I have a question about using the DOCTYPE. I'm currently using
the
> following:
> 
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
>         "http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd">
> 
> Does the browser refer to
> http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd to see if
the
> page is
> well formed everytime a page is loaded.
> Or is it useful only when we validate html.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> 
> 
> ITM Business Solutions
> Unit 4
> Nine Trees Trading Estate
> Morthen Road
> Rotherham
> S66 9JG
> 
> Reception
> Tel: 01709 703288
> Fax: 01709 701549
> 
> Help Desk
> Tel:01709 530424
> Fax: 01709 702159
> 
> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message is intended only for the use of
> the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain
> information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from
disclosure
> under applicable law.
> 
> 



ITM Business Solutions
Unit 4
Nine Trees Trading Estate
Morthen Road
Rotherham
S66 9JG

Reception
Tel: 01709 703288
Fax: 01709 701549

Help Desk
Tel:01709 530424
Fax: 01709 702159

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message is intended only for the use of
the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain
information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure
under applicable law.

Received on Friday, 5 July 2002 05:37:01 UTC