In the DTD of HTML 4.01, <http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/dtd.html>,
it states that the only legal elements in the BODY element are block
tags (and a few more: SCRIPT, INS and DEL):

<!ELEMENT BODY O O (%block;|SCRIPT)+ +(INS|DEL) -- document body -->

These block elements are the following:

<!ENTITY % block
"P | %heading; | %list; | %preformatted; | DL | DIV | NOSCRIPT |
BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | HR | TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS">

Where %heading; is the tags H1 to H6, %list; is UL and OL, and
%preformatted; is PRE.

That is all.

So, if I get this correctly, it is not legal to put text, or inline
elements (text formatting, SPAN) directly into a BODY tag. None of these
tags are implied. Yet, people do it all the time.

What gives? Am I misunderstanding the spec, or a people doing it wrong?

--
Bart.

Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@pandora.be> writes:

> So, if I get this correctly, it is not legal to put text, or inline
> elements (text formatting, SPAN) directly into a BODY tag.

I'm too lazy to check, but that's my recollection too. Also, IIRC the
w3c HTML validator will warn on these cases.

> None of these tags are implied. Yet, people do it all the time.
>
> What gives? Am I misunderstanding the spec, or a people doing it wrong?

People are doing it wrong. But since it mostly works, they'll keep on
doing it. This also goes for all the other places where non-blocks
aren't allowed.

--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/

Bart Lateur wrote:
> In the DTD of HTML 4.01, <http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/dtd.html>,
> it states that the only legal elements in the BODY element are block
> tags (and a few more: SCRIPT, INS and DEL):
>
> <!ELEMENT BODY O O (%block;|SCRIPT)+ +(INS|DEL) -- document body -->
>
> These block elements are the following:
>
> <!ENTITY % block
> "P | %heading; | %list; | %preformatted; | DL | DIV | NOSCRIPT |
> BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | HR | TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS">
>
> Where %heading; is the tags H1 to H6, %list; is UL and OL, and
> %preformatted; is PRE.
>
> That is all.
>
> So, if I get this correctly, it is not legal to put text, or inline
> elements (text formatting, SPAN) directly into a BODY tag. None of these
> tags are implied. Yet, people do it all the time.

People also exceed the speed limit and fail to declare gambling winnings
to the tax authorities.

> What gives? Am I misunderstanding the spec, or a people doing it wrong?

In earlier HTML it was OK, and it's still OK in HTML 4.01 Transitional,
but not in Strict.

Bart Lateur wrote:
> In the DTD of HTML 4.01, <http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/dtd.html>,
> it states that the only legal elements in the BODY element are block
> tags (and a few more: SCRIPT, INS and DEL):

[...]

>
> So, if I get this correctly, it is not legal to put text, or inline
> elements (text formatting, SPAN) directly into a BODY tag. None of these
> tags are implied. Yet, people do it all the time.
>
> What gives? Am I misunderstanding the spec, or a people doing it wrong?
>

People are either doing it wrong, or else using a transitional doctype
where it is allowed.

Nick


--
Nick Theodorakis
nick_theodorakis@hotmail.com
contact form:
http://theodorakis.net/contact.html

On 8 Apr, 20:36, Bart Lateur <bart.lat...@pandora.be> wrote:

> What gives? Am I misunderstanding the spec, or a people doing it wrong?

This is correct (but just for 4 Strict, not 3.2 or Transitional) and
most coders do indeed use it wrongly.

The intention is a clear and simple one, if only you're aware of it.
%inline; elements are considered to be "bare" and without well-managed
container boxes, so shouldn't be placed naked onto a page.

You can even extend this attitude so that %inline; content shouldn't
be used in a %block; context in general. This isn't expressed in the
DTD, because most contexts accept %flow; rather than %block; alone.
However mixing inline and block elements as siblings is not a
recommended practice, certainly not at the higher scale of the DOM.

As a specific example, I often float <div> around on a page (image/
caption containers) to avoid the rigid grid look of simple CSS
layouts. It's also necessary to place a HTML element after these with
clear used to tidy up after the floating. I used to use a <br> for
this. That worked fine, and because they were all contained in overall
<div> anyway, it was even valid. However I now regard it as
inappropriate, so I use <hr> instead (with some CSS to make the usual
horizontal rule disappear).