CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlalgorithm
Nils
Nils

Reputation: 13777

HTML Table rendering algorithms, recommended reading?

I was wondering how modern browsers render html tables, for example how they figure out the exact size of the cells. After googling a bit, all I found was an RFC from 1996, but nothing new. Since I also read that html 5 specifies the parsing algorithm, so I thought maybe the algorithm for determinating the layout is also specified or at least it is described how a possible algorithm should work. Just looking at the code of open source browsers would probably be very time consuming and therefore rather not an option.

Upvotes: 15

Views: 2672

Answers (2)

Adrian Leonhard
Adrian Leonhard

Reputation: 7370

Not specific to HTML, but the paper The Table Layout Problem (Richard J. Anderson, Sumeet Sobti) analyzes laying out a table, e.g. minimum height for fixed width and other problems.

It concludes that the problem is NP-complete and suggests a number of heuristics.

Upvotes: 13

maniek
maniek

Reputation: 7307

Specifically regarding tables: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/tables.html#width-layout

The full spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/cover.html#minitoc

Upvotes: 11

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