RE: Minimized P valid XHTML?

>From: Thanasis Kinias <tkinias@asu.edu>
>I'm not sure if it's legit to use the shorthand <br />-style closure on
>non-empty elements, although I'm loathe to argue with the validator.

It would seem to me, that there's no other way, than to disagree with the 
validator, or to disagree with the recommendation.

Studying this issue it seems that the DTD does not require end tags for any 
element! E.g.:

<form action="foo">
<textarea name="test" rows="3" cols="40" />
</form>

is valid (even seems to work ok in Opera 5). That being the case, it would 
seem that the validators are correct. Which raises onether question: which 
is normative, the DTD or the Recommendation?

Somebody set me straight, please!
Osmo Saarikumpu

P.S.

I've sent the following error report to www-html-editor@w3.org:

Hi,

I'm wondering if there's an error in sec. 4.3, as it states that:

"For non-empty elements, end tags are required"

and

"All elements other than those declared in the DTD as EMPTY must have an
end tag."

while at the same time the validators declare as valid empty conteiners
if they are marked with "/>", e.g.

<p />, <h1 />, and so on are accepted.

This came to my attention when I noticed that some tutorials give
examples of COLGRUOP in the short form (<colgroup />), but I've been
teaching that (because of sec. 4.3) COLGROUP must be marked with an end
tag, regardless of having content or not, because it is not "declared in
the DTD as EMPTY".

It seems to me that there has to be an error, either in the validators
or in the W3C Recommendation (6 January 2000).

Thank you for your attention,

Osmo Saarikumpu
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Received on Thursday, 29 March 2001 18:23:21 UTC