Re: should an invalid class name be allowed - maybe a warning?

Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:

> * Scott Dunbar wrote:
> >Hello,
> >    For validation, if I have an invalid class name, i.e <img
> >class="badspelling"... I think that the validator should at least warn
> >you that the tag is of an unknown class.
>
> Since classes aren't just for style sheets, this would be a bad idea.

Bjoern,

Thanks for the feedback.  Maybe I am missing something but I'm not sure
that I follow you.  In the context of the HTML and CSS validators, the
documents that they are dealing contain all "known" variables.  That is,
when an HTML document is loaded, along with any CSS, etc. the client, be it
a validator, browser, or whatever, has a complete, unambiguous document.
If an HTML tag uses an unknown class then I'm not sure that I understand
why that wouldn't be at least a warning.  To be clear - I don't mean that a
class within a CSS document or inline section is unused in a particular
HTML document.  For example:

<img class="unknown" width="123" height="123" alt="An Image">

If the class "unknown" in this case cannot be resolved via any mechanism
(CSS "include", inline CSS, etc.) then I do not feel that this is a "valid"
HTML/CSS line.  If I were to misspell the "width" attribute for example,
that would be an error (in this case in the HTML validator, not the CSS
validator).  I'm missing why, from the perspective of a validator, the
misspelled class name would not also be an error or at least a warning.  If
I were to treat the HTML document as XML, a validator would use or
automatically generate a schema definition based on the CSS and, in my
example above, the XML would not validate.  Another way to look at it would
be as a parallel to referential integrity in a database.  Conceptually it's
all the same thing to me.

The seconday issue, and the one that caused me the problems in the first
place, is the case sensitivity of the class name.  Mozilla in standards
mode enforces case sensitivity in class names but no other brower that I
could find enforces it.

Thanks very much for your time.  I apologize in advance if this seems like
a newbie type of discussion.


--
scott dunbar                                    xigole systems, inc.
scott@xigole.com                                superior, co, usa
home: 303.499.8843                              cell: 303.378.3005