My actual question is, "Is it necessary to use a close at the end of tags that have no opening? (I.E. <br />?)" But, I will read anything you'all might have to say.

I've been reading about new standards for HTML, and I discover a slow transition or conversion to XHTML. This standard compares to HTML 4.1 in some way, but when I use the validator at:

http://validator.w3.org

It gives me errors! It calls me invalid! Then it gives me this string of incomprehensibility.

NET-enabling start-tag requires SHORTTAG YES

What gives? I'm updating code that's still written with the tags in <ALLCAPS> to handle editors that didn't highlight in the old days. The editor I'm using is the latest version and doesn't seem to put in all the information I seem to need. It seems I need to be asking more questions.

My actual question is, "Is it necessary to use a close at the end of tags that have no opening? (I.E. <br />?)"

It's not a tag that has "no opening", they are called "self closing tags" as there is no end tag (</tag>) equivalent to the opening tag (<tag>) .

The /> ending MUST be used in XHTML but SHOULD NOT be used in HTML

If you are using a HTML4 doctype with /> tag ends THAT is the source of the validation error

If you are using a XHTML doctype the tags and attributes MUST BE IN LOWER CASE

Thank you Chris. Not using "X"HTML yet. I am converting all the tags to lower-case for the reason that I end up with all kinds of "strange problems" when I try to get something like a download from an upload I made, only to discover nobody's got it because it's named thepics.ZIP. I've been running Ubuntu here for a few months on my old computer and understand the Unix protocol to some small extent.

I have been seeing the "self closing" tags used in example code while I'm looking around for answers to the newer markup. I find these in reference to HTML, but dern me, I can't find you an example. Maybe I've been up too long and am starting to see things.

http://codex.wordpress.org/HTML_to_XHTML