Re: [xsl] Understanding why <tag></tag> is the way it is (was Re: [xsl] IE Client side transformation issue)

[David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>]

> If you send it with an html mime type, then what you _should_
> get is the same as if the input had been >abc with a visible > sign,

which is why incidentally the so called "compatibility rules" in XHTML
are fundamentally broken. Relying on <br /> to produce a linebreak
not a linebreak followed by a > sign means that you are _relying_ on the
browsers using a non conformant parser for HTML. Browsers almost always
do use a non conformant parse so it sort of works, but a "standard"
should never have suggested that it is a good thing. HTML validating
systems often do use an SGML parser (nsgmls, typically) and there things
often break, <br /> validates as the extra text > is allowed in any
content model that allows <br/> but for example
<meta .../>
fails to validate as it is equivalent to
<meta ...>>
and you cant have extra > text in the head of the document.

David

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