Re: W3C validator - BUG

These mistaken "there is a bug in the validator" and "I do not 
understand why it is not accepted..." seems to reappear with increasing 
frequencey.

So even though the validator is logically doing the right thing, users 
of the validator do not get the feedback necessary for them to fix their 
own errors.

Probably this has been said earlier, but.... everone would be happier if 
the validator would be able to say:

   "I expected an entity here, as I saw an '&', but I cannot recognize 
'&id=12' as an entity.
    Please check http://www.w3.org/foo/bar/fum , where all entities 
known by me are described"

or something like that.

I know that when parser generators are used, this behavior may be 
difficult to achieve, as they turn out to be context-dependent -- i.e. 
the helpful advise one gives in an error message is based on knowing 
what the user seems to try to achieve. Difficult and challenging, but 
tackled in the "programming language parser" area before.

But, if this is not done, then we will continue to see such messages in 
the validator-list, and nobody is happy about that.

regards,

/olle

David Dorward wrote:

>
> On 12 Mar 2004, at 11:49, Herbert Rosenau wrote:
>
>> As sample of an error the validator does itself is:
>>
>> Line 188, column 75:  reference to entity "Aktion" for which no 
>> system identifier could be generated
>>   ...t/cgi-bin/webring.cgi?Ring=428&Id=8&Aktion=Back"
>>
>> There is NO error in the file - but the validator misinterprets it.
>
>
> Wrong. There is an error in the file, and the validator is quite right.
>
> http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/problems.html#amp
>
> -- 
> David Dorward
> http://dorward.me.uk/



-- 
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Olle Olsson   olleo@sics.se   Tel: +46 8 633 15 19  Fax: +46 8 751 72 30
	[Svenska W3C-kontoret: olleo@w3.org]
SICS [Swedish Institute of Computer Science]
Box 1263
SE - 164 29 Kista
Sweden
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Received on Friday, 12 March 2004 10:08:46 UTC