XHTML Validation problem with shorttags

agbates

Hello Everyone,

I'm not skilled with php. I am currently working on an xhtml project which uses the following php:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/keepingcurrent/

When running it thru the W3 validator for XHTML strict, it comes up with errors regarding the use of "short tags". Can anyone supply a compliant workaround?

The original author of the article is long gone somewhere..

Thanks

burfo

This is either a bug in the validation page, or something strange in the HTML spec that I don't know about. Form is a block-level element, so I don't know why it doesn't allow it to contain the input elements...

It doesn't like that your input elements are directly inside your form elements. Either open another div element inside of the form to hold your input elements, or declare the form element outside of the existing (div class="first") element. Then the WC3 validation page will show no errors.

agbates

Thank you burfo...much appreciated!

NogDog

burfo wrote:
This is either a bug in the validation page, or something strange in the HTML spec that I don't know about. Form is a block-level element, so I don't know why it doesn't allow it to contain the input elements...

It doesn't like that your input elements are directly inside your form elements. Either open another div element inside of the form to hold your input elements, or declare the form element outside of the existing (div class="first") element. Then the WC3 validation page will show no errors.

The form element specification shows the element declaration as:

<!ELEMENT FORM - - [color=red](%block;|SCRIPT)+ -(FORM)[/color] -- interactive form -->

The section I highlighted in red indicates that a <form> must contain 1 or more block-type elements (such as <div>, <p>, or - especially useful for forms - <fieldset>) or a <script> element.

However, I must say I don't understand from the original post what this has to do with short tags and the referenced page at alistapart.com? 😕

burfo

NogDog wrote:

<!ELEMENT FORM - - [color=red](%block;|SCRIPT)+ -(FORM)[/color] -- interactive form -->

Is there a reference which explains the format in the specification? I've looked at it many times, but I guess I've never been 100% sure.

And I don't know where the short tags thing came from either...I suppose because the errors were occuring on the short tags format of input elements.

burfo

Nevermind -- found it:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/intro/sgmltut.html#h-3.3.3