- From: Nat Irons <irons@apple.com>
- Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 16:34:01 -0700
- To: www-validator@w3.org
I use MHonArc to maintain a number of mailing list archives. mhonarc likes to add a handful of HTML comments to the beginning of its pages, in advance of the doctype declaration. The validator hates this; it can't find a doctype at all if it isn't the first thing in the file. <http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fbumppo.net%2Flists%2Fmacperl%2F1999%2F07%2Fmsg00316.html> I can't find anything in the HTML 4.0 spec to indicate that the validator is doing the right thing. In fact, when the subject came up on the mhonarc list, its author cited the spec in his defense: ------------- 7.1 Introduction to the structure of an HTML document An HTML 4.0 document is composed of three parts: 1. a line containing HTML version information, 2. a declarative header section (delimited by the HEAD element), 3. a body, which contains the document's actual content. The body may be implemented by the BODY element or the FRAMESET element. White space (spaces, newlines, tabs, and comments) may appear before or after each section. Sections 2 and 3 should be delimited by the HTML element. ------------- >From where I stand, the validator is exhibiting a bug, and I'm not sure what's involved in fixing it. -nat -- Nat Irons Apple Computer, WWDR &c irons@apple.com PGP fingerprint: 873D 7978 23FC 37FE 10D5 349A F57F 0FAA F4D4 B19A "The land we belong to, belongs to the bank." - Garrison Keillor
Received on Thursday, 22 July 1999 19:34:31 UTC