What is a 'docype'?

Hi,

to my great disappointment I recently noticed that the frontend prose  
doesn't parrot a redeclared version parameter entity reference in system  
identifiers anymore with transvestitional declaration subset inclusion.

Alas, that was my favourite misfeature.

So far so good, but even more recently I noticed 'This Page Is Valid (no  
Doctype found)!' messages in response to various proper prologs.

I would like to know what a 'doctype' is in current (specified?) W3C  
jargon (I do know what an ISO 8879 document type declaration is, but I do  
not think that there is -- or ever was -- any historical connection).


On a sidenote, quoting

<http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html>

| When authoring document is HTML or XHTML,

Like other non-native speakers I know, I appear to have trouble to  
penetrate the meaning of this statement.

| it is important to Add a Doctype declaration. The declaration must be
| exact (both in spelling and in case)

Does this mean reserved names and root element declarations are supposed  
to be always case sensitive?

| to have the desired effect,

What is the 'desired effect' (in my rather naive world, I always supposed  
'parsing the declared subset')?


TIA

Received on Monday, 21 November 2005 05:10:12 UTC