- From: David Dorward <david@dorward.me.uk>
- Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 12:56:56 +0100
- To: Alun Jones <a.jones@hccnet.nl>
- Cc: www-validator@w3.org
On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 10:42 +0200, Alun Jones wrote: > In HTML the element input and img are not flagged as errors when end > tags are added: > <input type="text" /> While it is almost certainly an error on the part of the author, it isn't a syntax error as defined by SGML and the HTML DTDs, nor is it a syntax error as defined by the prose of the HTML specification. The long explanation can be found at http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/empty.html The short version is that: * <input type="text" / is, in HTML, equivalent to <input type="text">. Therefore: * <input type="text" /> is, in HTML, equivalent to <input type="text">>. Therefore * <input type="text" /> is, in HTML, equivalent to <input type="text">>. and anywhere you are allowed to have an <input> element in HTML, you are also allowed to have character data (like a visible greater than symbol). Most, although not all, browsers get this wrong (since they use tag soup slurpers rather than proper SGML parsers) which is why Appendix C of the XHTML 1.0 Recommendation "works". The document is valid and conforms to the HTML 4.01 Recommendation but doesn't say what the author intended it to say. It is important to keep in mind that the validator, while being a very useful tool, is not the beginning and end of quality control for webpages. I have a spelling checker; It came with my PC. It plainly marks four my revue Mistakes I can knot sea. I've run this poem threw it; I'm sore your please too no, It's letter perfect in its weigh, My checker tolled me sew. -- David Dorward <http://dorward.me.uk/> "Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another." -- The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Received on Saturday, 10 September 2005 11:54:54 UTC