[whatwg] Character-encoding-related threads

Thu Oct 18 16:09:42 PDT 2012

On Fri, 13 Jul 2012, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> 2012-06-29 23:42, Ian Hickson wrote:
> >
> > Currently you need a DOCTYPE, a character encoding declaration, a 
> > title, and some content. I'd love to be in a position where the empty 
> > string would be a valid document, personally.
> 
> Is content really necessary? The validator.nu service accepts the 
> following:
> 
> <!DOCTYPE html><title></title>

It's a SHOULD-level requirement; search the spec for the word "palpable".

> But the <title> element isn't really needed, and unless I'm mistaken, 
> the current rules allow its omission under some conditions - which 
> cannot be tested algorithmically, so conformance checkers should issue a 
> warning at most about missing <title>.
> 
> It might be better to declare <title> optional but strongly recommend 
> its use on web or intranet pages (it might be rather irrelevant in other 
> uses of HTML).

That's basically what the spec says -- if there's a higher-level protocol 
that gives a <title>, then it's not required. It's only required if 
there's no way to get a title.

Are there any situations that this doesn't handle where it would be 
legitimate to omit a <title> element?

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