XHTML validation problems

[Webforumz Staff]

I talked my boss into letting me update our site to XHTML/CSS compliance (mostly cause he'll go with anything I recommend without having to know why). When running the validator I came up with a few unexpected problems.

It doesn't like

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<script language="Javascript">
or
<select onChange="whatever();">

It's the 'language' and 'onChange' parts it doesn't like. First off, what's the deal? Does XHTML not like Javascript and DHTML events?

Secondly if I leave these (or other) non-valid things in my XHTML what happens when different browsers encounter them?

[Webforumz Staff]

I would assume that all browsers are happy with

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<script language="whatever">

purely because, if the language isn't understood, the browser ignores the code. I remember this certainly being a case for older browsers.

onchange is a bit different, because I would assume that, due to your findings, it is not part of XHTML....?

[D3mon]

onChange - Drop the capital C to lowercase for XHTML,
might try that for the capital J in Javascript too...

[gwx03]

Note that XHTML requires you to define fully.

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">

That is somethng most people dont know or forget about XHTML ( and yea, I forgot to put it in my tutorial )

yes. it should be
<select onchange="whatever();">

XHTML doesn't like caps. Didn't you read my tutorial!!!

[Webforumz Staff]

Yeah, Netscape used to ignore events that didn't have camelcase though, so I've always been specific about that, but...screw NS.

[Webforumz Staff]

Hmm, this is what the validator gives me:

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Line 16, column 17: there is no attribute "language" (explain...). 
  <script language="JavaScript" src="rollovers.js" type="text/javascript">

so I took the language part out and it seemed happy.

So what happens in the real world when I do something invalid, like use the name attribute in a form along with id?

[Webforumz Staff]

you get screwed? Sounds like this is something they've overlooked?