Re: Can identifier names start with a hyphen?

> > [spec source: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html]
> > Only properties, values, units, pseudo-classes, pseudo-elements,
> > and at-rules may start with a hyphen (-); other identifiers (e.g.
> > element names, classes, or IDs) may not.
> > [/spec]
> > 
> > This seems to contradict the previous statement and says that IDs
> > like "-abc" are invalid.
> 
> This is intended to further restrict the definition for "other
> identifiers" to something stricter than that for identifiers in
> general. Considering that this sentence immediately follows the
> previous one, I think it's reasonably clear that it's adding
> further restrictions to the previous sentence.

The prose from 4.1.3 (quoted above) that says that IDs may not start
with a hyphen seems to be at odds with the grammar expressed in Apendix
G.

simple_selector
  : element_name [ HASH | class | attrib | pseudo ]*
  | [ HASH | class | attrib | pseudo ]+
  ;
  
That says that a selector can start with a HASH, which is defined as:
"#"{name}

{name} is defined as:
{nmchar}+

{nmchar} is defined as:
[_a-z0-9-]|{nonascii}|{escape}

According to that expression, couldn't an ID used in a selector start
with a hyphen, a digit, or a hyphen followed by a digit?  And it seems
that class selectors are defined such that the class name could start
with a hyphen, but not a digit or a hyphen followed by a digit.

Do I have that right?

Jesse


--- "L. David Baron" <dbaron@dbaron.org> wrote:

> On Thursday 2006-03-16 17:57 -0500, Vlad Alexander wrote:
> > 
> > Sorry if this has already been asked. Can identifier names (classes
> > and IDs) start with a hyphen?
> 
> Identifiers in general and classes and IDs specifically are two
> different things.
> 
> > [spec source: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html]
> > In CSS 2.1, identifiers  (including element names, classes, and IDs
> in selectors) can contain only the characters [A-Za-z0-9] and ISO
> 10646 characters U+00A1 and higher, plus the hyphen (-) and the
> underscore (_); they cannot start with a digit, or a hyphen followed
> by a digit.
> > [/spec]
> 
> This describes the general rules for identifiers, and gives some
> examples of things that are identifiers.
> 
> > That's clear. IDs like "-abc" are okay but "-0abc" are not. The
> spec then reads:
> > 
> > [spec source: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html]
> > Only properties, values, units, pseudo-classes, pseudo-elements,
> and at-rules may start with a hyphen (-); other identifiers (e.g.
> element names, classes, or IDs) may not.
> > [/spec]
> > 
> > This seems to contradict the previous statement and says that IDs
> like "-abc" are invalid.
> 
> This is intended to further restrict the definition for "other
> identifiers" to something stricter than that for identifiers in
> general.
> Considering that this sentence immediately follows the previous one,
> I
> think it's reasonably clear that it's adding further restrictions to
> the
> previous sentence.
> 
> > I ran the following 2 rules through the W3C CSS validator and
> according to the validator, both are valid:
> > 
> > #-abc {color:red}
> > #-0abc {color:red}
> 
> The validator is not a reference implementation, and it's not even a
> particularly well-maintained implementation, so that's pretty much
> irrelevant.
> 
> -David
> 
> -- 
> L. David Baron                                <URL:
> http://dbaron.org/ >
>            Technical Lead, Layout & CSS, Mozilla Corporation
>

Received on Friday, 17 March 2006 00:54:17 UTC