[whatwg] Inconsistent behavior for empty-string URLs

Wed Dec 16 08:21:01 PST 2009

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 2:59 AM, Simon Pieters <simonp at opera.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:21:33 +0100, Jonas Sicking <jonas at sicking.cc> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Nicholas Zakas <nzakas at yahoo-inc.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Here's what I would propose:
>>>
>>> 1. Empty string attributes for HTML elements specifying resources to
>>> automatically download are considered invalid and don't cause a request
>>> to be sent. Examples: <img>, <link>, <script>, <iframe>, etc. This would
>>> not apply to <a href=""> because it is a user-initiated request.
>>>
>>> 2. This also applies to manipulation of HTML elements through the DOM,
>>> so (new Image()).src="" would not result in a request being sent.
>>>
>>> 3. This does not apply to JavaScript APIs that are unrelated to HTML
>>> elements, such as Web Workers, XMLHttpRequest, etc.
>>
>> I'd prefer to explicitly enumerate the elements we're talking about,
>> rather than giving rules which risk being interpreted differently by
>> different people.
>> For example not all <link>s are automatically downloaded, such as
>> <link rel=prev>. However I suspect that we'll want all <link>s to
>> behave the same.
>>
>> So the specific list would then be:
>>
>> <img>
>> <link>
>
> I think only icon, prefetch and stylesheet links.
>
> The following element defines two links, one of which would be ignored:
>
>   <link rel="icon index" href>

Sounds good.

>> <script>
>> <iframe>
>> <video>
>
> Including poster?

Yes. Good catch.

>> <audio>
>> <object>
>> <embed>
>> <source>
>> <input type=image>
>
> <command icon>?
> <html manifest>?
> <applet code>? (Maybe not, since it's more of a parameter to the Java
> plugin.)
> <frame src>?

I don't really feel strongly about <applet> given that it's
deprecated. But sounds good.

/ Jonas