Re: [whatwg] The problems with namespaces in text/html

• From: William F Hammond <hammond@csc.albany.edu>
• Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:33:30 -0500
• To: www-math@w3.org
• Message-ID: <i7y7qn6u1h.fsf@hilbert.math.albany.edu>

I entirely agree with what Neil Soiffer said.

There is one small thing I wish to add about document syntax for
defined-empty elements in the text/html side.

Neil Soiffer wrote:

> 3.  Empty tag syntax.  I suspect that this is more problematic for
> HTML5, although I think a "repair" mechanism/specification or a minor
> syntax addition to HTML5 could be specified.

Appendix C of the W3C XHTML 1 specification addressed this.  While the
usage <foo /> seems to pass in many user agents as text/html, it is
nonetheless formally incorrect as HTML 4.01 and that was needless inasmuch
as the classic HTML spec could have been updated easily (by modifying
its SGML declaration) to allow any of

                   1.  <foo>
                   2.  <foo></foo>
                   3.  <foo/>

when "foo" is a defined-empty element.  Note also that usage 2 is
formally incorrect for a defined-empty element in HTML 4.01.

I suggest that byte streams fed to HTML5 be allowed to have any of the
three forms above when an element is defined-empty.  (I don't see any
explicit mention of defined-empty elements in the whatwg spec.)

                                    -- Bill

Received on Tuesday, 7 November 2006 17:34:01 UTC