Re: DOCTYPE definition

Murray Maloney ([email protected])
Mon, 21 Nov 1994 10:21:41 -0500 (EST)


> Maybe it's a FAQ, but I'm a little confused about the use of the
> DOCTYPE definition in HTML 2.0, like
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3O//DTD W3 HTML 2.0//EN">
>
> The practical problem is that LaTeX2html and other converters insert
> this tag at the beginning of the translated document, but weblint, the
> tool that I run for HTML syntax checking, complains about its use.
>
> May someone explain me the status of this stuff?

Sure. A conforming SGML document -- HTML is SGML --
must include a doctype declaration to inform the
SGML parser which Document Type Definition (DTD)
it should use as its language definition reference.

So, a conforming HTML 2.0 application should expect
a <!DOCTYPE HTML statement -- but current browsers
won't expect that until new releases are deployed,
although I think that Arena expects it already.

Your converters are doing the right thing -- at least
according to the HTML 2.0 specification which is
currently being developed. Unfortunately, either
your weblint is an older version, the authors have
not been paying attention to HTML 2.0, or they have
decided to wait until it achieves RCF status.

Murray

>
> Thanks
> Alessio Bragadini
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Alessio F. Bragadini - University of Pisa, Europe
> <A href="http://www.di.unipi.it/~abragad/">(more here)</A>
> [email protected]
>
> "You must remember this, a sig is just a sig."
> (From Casablanca)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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