HTML Forum

**The_Anomaly** · 06-29-2005, 12:54 PM

I've heard alot about being saying "valid html" lately...whats the difference with html and valid html. If someone's invalid coding still works then whats the problem? I really would like to know because i think i'm a bit of a sloppy coder, i always do what works and not whats right.

**fancymoustache** · 06-29-2005, 01:19 PM

If you go to http://validator.w3.org/, you can upload your webpage to them and they'll validate your page. Basically valid HTML is just HTML set up in the correct format. There are different types, too. Mainly, for example, I use 4.1 Strict. A popular one is XTHML 1.0 Transitional. To define which type you use, you use what is called a DOCTYPE. For the HTML 4.1 Strict that I use, I use the DOCTYPE:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

What this does is tell the browser you're using how to interpret the HTML. Different DOCTYPES well make your webpage(s) look different. When you have sloppy HTML and/or no DOCTYPE, browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer interpret your HTML differently. THIS IS BAD! Therefore, with valid html and the proper DOCTYPE, you're assured that every browser sees your website the same, for the most part.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that is my understanding of it.

Hope that helped you,
Micah

**danburzo** · 06-29-2005, 04:23 PM

basically, valid HTML is correct HTML. That means to comply with some rules, set by the document type (using the DOCTYPE declaration). For example, in XHTML 1.0 is stricter than HTML 4:
- you need to have the doctype declaration, at the very beginning of the file
- you have to write all the tags in lower case.
- the document has to have a proper structure... no unclosed tags etc.
and some other stuff.
With valid html you don't leave the browser room for misinterpretation, because different browsers handle untidy code differently.

**The_Anomaly** · 06-29-2005, 05:14 PM

Is there different syntax for doing different doctypes? i know xhtml is different but what are the others?

**danburzo** · 06-30-2005, 02:28 AM

no different syntax, just some restrictions. If you wanted to use frames, you would have to use XHTML 1.0 Frameset Doctype. There are also some deprecated tags, like <font>, which are still allowed in Transitional but are invalid in Strict. I recommend you the XHTML tutorial on http://www.w3schools.com

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