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Posted by Benjamin Niemann on 04/17/07 20:33
Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> Scripsit Benjamin Niemann:
>
>> <http://triin.net/2006/06/12/HTML#document-types> might be what you
>> are looking for. The author analyzed ~1.2 million documents.
>> Unfortunately Googles Web Authoring Statistics
>> <http://code.google.com/webstats/>, which analyzed a much larger
>> number of documents, did not look at the DOCTYPE declaration...
>
> What makes you think the DOCTYPE declaration determines whether a document
> is in fact an XHTML document? In principle, it simply specifies the DTD
> that the document purports to comply with. It cannot actually _make_ a
> document an XHTML document, any more than a boilerplate text "This message
> is certified virus free" makes anything virus free. In practice, there is
> a huge number of pages that are a horrendous mix of HTML and XHTML with
> lots of syntax errors, using an XHTML DOCTYPE.
You're certainly right that the usage of a XHTML DOCTYPE does not imply that
the document is actually XHTML. But it does say something about the
intentions of the document author. Unless the OP gives us a detailed and
unambiguous definition of "XHTML usage", I would say that a document which
the author wants to be XHTML (but often fails to implemented even remotely
correct) is XHTMLish enough to fit the (guessed) definition. Mostly because
your strict (and formally correct) definition is (sadly) of little use in
the real world.
--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://pink.odahoda.de/
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