Posted by ironcorona on 05/04/06 09:33

Spartanicus wrote:
> Mark Parnell <webmaster@clarkecomputers.com.au> wrote:
>
>>> Really? But they're empty!
>> Not in XHTML. XML has no concept of empty elements.
>
> XHTML is merely a reformulation of HTML in XML, what is defined as an
> empty element in HTML remains an empty element in XHTML.

But if XML doesn't have empty tags, as the previous poster said, then
how can XHTML have empty tags since XHTML is a subset of XML (where the
DTD defines how the browser (or whatever) should deal with certain tags,
in a standardised way)?

As we can see here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#xhtml

"XHTML documents are XML conforming. As such, they are readily viewed,
edited, and validated with standard XML tools"

Of course the fact is that there *are* empty tags in XHTML but how are
these defined?

>
>>> Is there an </img> tag too?
>> Absolutely.
>
> A limitation of XML is that a validator won't detect it, but there is no
> such tag in XHTML.

[...]

> Using a closing tag for empty elements with no content turns an element
> in to a non empty element with null content. Like validators XHTML
> renders won't choke on that, but it's incorrect XHTML.

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#h-4.6

says there it's fine.
But as I said the compatibility guidelines say that you really shouldn't
be using it.


--
ironcorona

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