Re: VI / V-one / V-ell delimiter?

Pete Wilson wrote:

> I learn from http://validator.w3.org/docs/errors.html that "'VI
> delimiter' is a technical term for the equal sign."

It's a half-truth. In SGML, "vi" (or "VI") is a technical term for a 
delimiter in a certain context ("value indicator" delimiter). The reference 
syntax, as well as HTML syntax, uses the "=" character as the concrete 
symbol, but the W3C validator is basically a generic markup validator, based 
on some old code for SGML validation.

> I'm all for precision, but I suggest it might be easier on the reader
> if the diagnostic read, "an attribute value literal can occur in an
> attribute specification list only after an equal sign."

That would be OK if the validator were rewritten to be specifically a 
validator for HTML. This would involve rewriting error messages. But I don't 
think anyone wants to do such things - it's probably not a job that someone 
wants to pay for.

> I still don't grok why line 2913 produced the error.

The question is even more mysterious to us, as we can just ask "line 2913 of 
_what_"?

-- 
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ 

Received on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 20:31:05 UTC