- From: Jukka K. Korpela <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi>
- Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 10:32:48 +0200 (EET)
- To: Garth Hamilton <garthah@computan.on.ca>
- Cc: www-validator@w3.org
On Fri, 11 Nov 2005, Garth Hamilton wrote:
> <script type="text/javascript">
> <!-- hide from incomparible browsers
> if (direction == "right") {
> // if statement to determine we increment the pointer
> ++curHorse; // if moving to right
> then increment counter curHorse
> }
> else if (direction == "left") { // if statement to
> determine we decrement the pointer --curHorse;
> // if moving to right then decrement counter curHorse }
> // stop hiding from incompatible browsers -->
> </script>
>
> creates an error should it ?
In XHTML, it is an error; in SGML-based HTML, it is not. So you are
apparently using XHTML, and naturally the validator reports the error. (By
the way, you should always post the URL when asking for help in validation
problems. The URL would let others see the whole problem.)
The characters "--" terminate a comment. The validator gives a good hint:
"invalid comment declaration: found name start character outside comment
but inside comment declaration"
Technically, though, it's a wrong message. There is no "comment
declaration" concept in XML and XHTML, just a simplified "comment"
concept, see http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-comments
The validator is based on an SGML validator, which has been tuned to
work (somehow) with XML as well. Therefore, its error message in this
case says what an SGML validator would say in a corresponding situation.
An appropriate error message would be something like
"The character pair '--' is not allowed within a comment."
In practice, drop the
<!-- hide ...
// ... -->
stuff. It is of no use (anyone who disagrees, please provide information
about an actually used browser that fails to recognize <script> elements),
it messes up the code, and in XHTML it is simply wrong: in XHTML, it is
allowed to remove comments before any other processing of a document,
and you don't want that.
Better still, move the script to an external file and refer to it
in a src attribute in <script>.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Received on Saturday, 12 November 2005 08:32:54 UTC