Re: "end tag for element" refers to non-existent FAQ entry

Brian Bors (brian.bors@gmail.com) wrote:

>
> The "end tag for element "???" which is not open" error has a line in
> it's description. " If this error occurred in a script section of your
> document, you should probably read this FAQ entry
> <https://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html#faq-javascript>. "
>
> This link refers to a FAQ entry that no longer exists and should be
> removed (or the FAQ entry re-instated).
>

This indeed happens when you submit an HTML 4.01 document that contains a
homeless end tag. The link refers to
https://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html#faq-javascript
The fragment reference #faq-javascript used to refer the subsection “The
validator complains about something in my JavaScript!”, which seems to have
been removed around a year ago (after being there for two decades).

However, for example, the April 20, 2021 version
https://web.archive.org/web/20210420094533/https://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html#faq-javascript
does not contain anything that I can see as relating to the homeless end
tag issue. So just restoring the subsection would not help here.

I suppose the was to point out that inside a <script> element, a construct
like
var foo = "</p>"
would cause the string </p> to be recognized as markup, implicitly closing
the <script> element and causing other error messages, too, including the
somewhat confusing message about </script> terminating an element that is
not open. It might be useful to tell this, but as far as I can, the FAQ
never told it.

I suggest that the sentence be removed from the error message.
Alternatively, an explanation like the one I outlined above could be added
to the FAQ

Jukka, https://jkorpela.fi/