[html4all] 5 gears in reverse - anne v k enters the alt attribute debate

Fri Sep 21 06:22:06 PDT 2007

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:02:32 +0200, Philip Taylor (Webmaster)  
<P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk> wrote:

> Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>
>>>> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
>>>> <!-- It’s valid, sure. -->
>>> Putting the assertion to the test reveals :
>>>
>>>> This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Strict!
>>>> Result: 	Failed validation, 4 Errors
>>
>> Putting the validator to the test by reading the actual specification[1]
>> it is attempting to validate to, we find that

Whoops. Should have been

[[[
     The FPI for the Strict HTML 4.01 DTD is:

         "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
]]] - http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd

>> In other words, that validator is making a requirement out of a common
>> habit. Anne is correct, the validator is wrong.
>
> Would you like to clarify what technical point you are making
> here, Charles ?  Are you (1) saying the validator is defective

Yes. According to the DTDs W3C publishes, the only statement I can find of  
the FPI for HTML 4 strict is the one above.

> (if it is, we should report the fact to Olivier)

Go for it. I suspect Anne is the only person in the world to care enough  
about it to actually use this.

> and (2) are you
> saying that Anne is writing in (a) HTML 4.01 Strict

Yes.

> I
> infer that he is writing in HTML 4.01 Strict, that the
> DOCTYPE is therefore correct, and that the page is invalid.

The page may be invalid for some reason other than the Doctype. The doc  
type declaration is fine, so I am not sure what was invalid.I don't, after  
all, know which page we are talking about - all I saw was the first two  
lines, and I made the assumption that this was the error...

cheers

Chaals

-- 
   Charles McCathieNevile, Opera Software: Standards Group
   hablo español  -  je parle français  -  jeg lærer norsk
chaals at opera.com   http://snapshot.opera.com - Kestrel (9.5α1)