[SOLVED] Meta tag

mcdanielnc89 · #1 Oct 20th, 2007, 14:56

in html 4.01 i get this ewrror wqen validating...

 
end tag for element "META" which is not open 
…text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"></meta>

And it is open, lol..

Daniel · #2 Oct 20th, 2007, 14:59

you sure its opne?

mcdanielnc89 · #3 Oct 20th, 2007, 15:06

Yes here is the full thing.

HTML: Select all

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"></meta>

MikeHopley · #4 Oct 20th, 2007, 16:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcdanielnc89

Yes here is the full thing.

HTML: Select all

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"></meta>

Marc · #5 Oct 20th, 2007, 17:23

If you are using (x)HTML, should you not use this:

Code: Select all

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

Ignore me if i am wrong

MikeHopley · #6 Oct 20th, 2007, 19:16

Yes Marc, that's right. But it's not a closing tag -- it's a "self-closing" tag.

Whether in HTML or XHTML, you should never see the syntax </meta> or </img>.

Marc · #7 Oct 20th, 2007, 19:17

Yep Mike... Just clarifying just incase someone using xHTML comes accross this thread one day

AdRock · #8 Oct 20th, 2007, 20:34

I have used </meta> at the end of my meta tags and my code validates fine

Oh!!....and i don't know if it makes any difference but i'm using XHTML strict

alexgeek · #9 Oct 20th, 2007, 20:37

Really Adam? That shouldn't happen, especially in xhtml strict.

AdRock · #10 Oct 20th, 2007, 20:38

Yes....i just revalidated just to make sure and there were no errors at all

Edit: just updated the index page without hte closing </meta> tags

MikeHopley · #11 Oct 20th, 2007, 21:18

Ack, I'm being a complete idiot.

</meta> is perfectly valid in XHTML. The reason you never see it is that it is that, with everyone serving XHTML with an HTML MIME type, it could cause nastier mangling than the supposedly "HTML compatible" <meta />.

There are actually three valid ways to close empty elements in XHTML:

<tag></tag>
<tag/>
<tag />

Sorry for the confusion.

alexgeek · #12 Oct 20th, 2007, 21:32

I don't think <tag/> is, as some netscape (i think it was netscape) browsers can't handle it.
Says on w3schools somewhere.

MikeHopley · #13 Oct 20th, 2007, 22:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexgeek

I don't think <tag/> is, as some netscape (i think it was netscape) browsers can't handle it.
Says on w3schools somewhere.

They are all valid. Browser compatibility is irrelevant to validity.

Of those three, only <tag /> should currently be used, because the other two have dodgy browser support.

alexgeek · #14 Oct 20th, 2007, 22:28

I thought the whole point of validity was for browser support. Am I wrong?

mcdanielnc89 · #15 Oct 20th, 2007, 22:58

lol, wow... didn't think this would be much a big thing, lol...

alexgeek · #16 Oct 20th, 2007, 23:12

Personally I think it's a good thing.
You learn a lot from threads like these.

MikeHopley · #17 Oct 21st, 2007, 08:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexgeek

I thought the whole point of validity was for browser support. Am I wrong?

The main motivation for writing valid code is to enjoy consistent results across browsers. But you must understand that "what is valid" and "what browsers actually understand" are two different things.

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[SOLVED] Meta tag