Re: HTML5 Validator doesn't appear to understand colspan

Can you please either post a URL for the page that contains that colspan,
or a reduced document that causes the same error to be emitted?

Note that the HTML5 spec contains the following statements:

  Tables have rows, columns, and cells given by their descendants. The rows
  and columns form a grid; a table's cells must completely cover that grid
  without overlap.
  http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/tabular-data.html#the-table-element

The HTML5 validator includes a "table integrity" checker that checks
whether the cells of a table cover its grid completely without overlap.
That grid consists of columns and what the spec calls "slots" that are
established by markup in your table and that need to be filled in with
actual table cells by other markup in your table.

And that error message is indicating that your colspan attribute is
establishing a column that ends up not having any cells in it -- because
the other markup in your table does not cause the slots in that column to
be filled in with actual table cells.

  --Mike

John Stokes <jstokes@heartofthefyre.us>, 2011-05-20 09:45 -0700:

> The HTML5 validator doesn't seem to understand a colspan attribute
> on a  in the first row of a table. 
> 
> Here is the error I receive:
> Table
> column 2 established by element td has no cells beginning in it.
> Date:
> Thu. May. 19, 2011 
> 
> If I put a "dummy" row with the structure
> 
>  &nbsp;
> 
> &nbsp;
> 
> before the above row it validates correctly. 
> 
> In reviewing the
> HTML5 spec, I don't see anything that prohibits a colspan from appearing
> in the first row of a table, nor can I find anything else syntatically
> wrong with my code. 
> 
> -John 

-- 
Michael[tm] Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike

Received on Monday, 23 May 2011 19:50:23 UTC