[whatwg] WA1: <meta> attribute requirements

[fantasai]

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, fantasai wrote:
> 
>>Ian Hickson wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, fantasai wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>HTML 4 #REQUIREs the 'content' attribute for <meta>. It does not 
>>>>require 'name' probably only because the DTD can't express a 
>>>>requirement of "either 'name' or 'http-equiv'": as WA1 notes, a 
>>>><meta> element without a 'name' attribute isn't defining any meta 
>>>>data. Is there a reason why these attributes are nonetheless all 
>>>>optional in WA1?
>>>
>>>What would it mean for them to be required?
>>
>>It would mean that leaving the attribute out violates a conformance 
>>requirement, making the document non-conformant.
> 
> 
> ...the advantage of which being...?
> 
> I don't understand the point in making this code:
> 
>    // this element will be used later
>    var meta = document.createElement('meta');
> 
> ...non-conformant.

Hmm. I think you need to think a bit on the conformance requirements
you want to have for documents. If you're interpreting "required" like
that, you'd run into the same problem with *any* required attribute or
child content. It's not a useful definition.

~fantasai