Re: Web validator bug: doesn't catch unquoted href value

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Jeremiah Morris wrote:
>
> <a href=http://validator.w3.org/>Test</a>
>
> I get a "end tag for element 'A' which is not open" message.

This, although, surprising, is technically correct.

The form

   <foo/ bar /

...is short for:

   <foo> bar </foo>

...in SGML with the SHORTTAG NET option enabled (as in HTML).

So your case above is equivalent to:

   <a href="http:"></a>validator.w3.org/&gt;Test</a>

Hence the error message: The last </a> is extraneous as far as the
validator is concerned.

Note: The only user agents in common use that support this feature are
SGML-based validators. There are open bugs on making this work for other
browsers, e.g.:

   http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94284

-- 
Ian Hickson                                      )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
U+1047E                                         /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
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Received on Tuesday, 20 January 2004 11:17:28 UTC