RE: http-equiv="refresh" redirects ignored in markup validator

Hello Olivier,

Thanks for the quick feedback.

In my case, the redirect acts on the top level URI, and does not break the
back button. Try for yourself. So that argument doesn't hold.

But let's suppose it did:

>Please read <http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/reback>: <meta
>http-equiv="Refresh"> is not a recommended (i.e, it's ugly) way to do a
>redirect. The Markup validator does supports the recommended HTTP-based
>redirects.

I read the page. I'm sorry, but it's got to be one of the worst links I have
followed for a long time.

"Use the power of HTTP! There's a feature in HTTP that allows you to
redirect, in a clean and transparent way, viewers of a page to another page.
It's not even complicated."

There's a feature? Really? If it's not complicated, why not tell me straight
away? As it is, I am given a set of links, none of which help me find out
what I should do. This is the very essence of bad practice, if anything. I
wonder who will benefit from such a "pointer"? Clearly not amateur web
developers like myself, or anyone who values their time.

>Not sure about this either. If someone tries to validate a file, the
>validator should probably validate this file, not whatever it refreshes
>to after n seconds (I know, the case n=0 is a limit case but better
>forget this practice anyway).

Why? The redirect is there for a reason, right? I really don't see why it
shouldn't follow it.

I do appreciate your pointer, but I'd be even more grateful for a link to a
page that actually explains the HTTP-based feature that I should use.

Thanks,
Lars

Received on Monday, 28 July 2003 10:49:59 UTC