CODEWITHSUNDEEP
html
core
core

Reputation: 33059

HTML nomenclature

Are there terms for HTML tags that differentiate between ones which should have closing tags, and ones which shouldn't?

For example, <em> and <a> should have accompanying </em> and </a> tags.

On the other hand, <br /> and <img ... /> shouldn't.

What is the first group called, and what is the second?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1416

Answers (4)

Cyberherbalist
Cyberherbalist

Reputation: 12309

According to HTML 4.01, there are three different groups when it comes to elements and tags.

  1. Elements that must have a closing tags. E.g. <h1></h1>
  2. Elements that may have no closing tag. E.g. <li>
  3. Elements that may not have a closing tag. E.g. <br> - the W3C validator for HTML 4.01 warns on <br />

I looked high and low in the specification and could find no term used to describe tags in the third grouping.

The term "empty" only says that there currently isn't any content between the tags. This applies to 1 & 2 above.

My proposal: although W3C doesn't saying anything about it, as far as I could tell, it might be possible to refer to elements like <br> as "white space elements", since they are considered to be white space, and they are elements. "White space characters", such as  , are not elements, so there should be no confusion. Anyone see any problems with this? If not, maybe we should make a proposal to W3C.

Upvotes: 1

Gumbo
Gumbo

Reputation: 655189

In XHTML the document has to be well-formed. That includes that every element that has been opened with a start tag must have a corresponding end tag. Except it has no content (like other elements or text). Such elements are refered as empty elements.

And the latter ones are empty elements as they don’t have any content.

Upvotes: 5

Grant Wagner
Grant Wagner

Reputation: 25931

It should be noted that in HTML 4.01 some tags (for example, <p> and <li>) can have content, but the closing tag is optional.

The following is valid markup:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Test
</body>
</html>

Upvotes: 1

Marc Gravell
Marc Gravell

Reputation: 1062600

I believe that <foo /> is an "empty element", as opposed to... not ;-p btw, <br /> isn't an html element - it is an xhtml element. IIRC it is supposed to be <br> in true legacy html.

Upvotes: 7

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