[whatwg] ambiguity in <header> definition

Ian Hickson ian at hixie.ch
Fri Jul 17 04:42:18 PDT 2009


On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Bruce Lawson wrote:
>
> spec says "A header element typically contains the section's heading (an 
> h1–h6 element or an hgroup element), but can also contain other 
> content"
> 
> I read this as other meaning "different"  - e.g., header doesn't need to 
> contain an h1–h6 element or an hgroup element. Others I know read 
> "other" here as meaning "additional" , eg that it should have an h1–h6 
> element or an hgroup element but *may* have nav etc.
> 
> I believe that the phrase "Contexts in which this element may be used: 
> Where flow content is expected" means I win the beer and the curry, but 
> perhaps the language should be tightened? ie ""A header element 
> typically contains the section's heading (an h1–h6 element or an 
> hgroup element), but this is not mandatory and may contain content such 
> as navigation, a search form blah blah"

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Thomas Broyer wrote:
> 
> The fact that it is phrased as "typically contains ... but can also 
> contain" makes it clear (for me) that it might contain a section's 
> heading but this is not enforced (otherwise, it wouldn't say 
> "typically")

On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, Bruce Lawson wrote:
> 
> my beef is with the words "can also contain", which suggest that it can 
> contain other stuff in addition to h1..h6, hgroup (which it can) but 
> it's ambiguous as to whether it must contain h1..h6, hgroup as a 
> minimum. (We're getting asked this a lot in html5doctor)

Fixed.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'


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