[whatwg] Namespaces and tag names in the HTML parser

[Ian Hickson]

On Thu, 1 Aug 2013, Peter Occil wrote:
>
> Many of these cases occur in the normative portion of the tree 
> construction stage.  Most of them involve checking whether an element 
> (as opposed to a tag token) has a certain name:
> 
> Accordingly, these cases are ambiguous:
> 
> * If foster parenting is enabled and target is a table, tbody, tfoot, 
> thead, or tr element
>
> * Let last template be the last template element in the stack of open 
> elements, if any.
>
> [...]
>
> * Pop elements from the stack of open elements until a template element 
> has been popped from the stack.
>
> * If there is a template element on the stack of open elements, ignore 
> the token.
>
> * If the second element on the stack of open elements is not a body 
> element, [...] or if there is a template element on the stack of open 
> elements, then ignore the token.

All of these hyperlink to the definition of the element and that 
definition is of an element in the HTML namespace, as the spec says:

# Except where otherwise stated, all elements defined or mentioned in this 
# specification are in the HTML namespace ("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml")

: For example, button elements are elements with the element type button, 
: meaning they have the local name "button" and (implicitly as defined 
: above) the HTML namespace.

Why do you think the cases above are ambigious, but the following, for 
instance, are not?

# The section element represents a generic section of a document or 
# application.

# If the target of the click event is an img element [...]

# A form control is disabled if its disabled attribute is set, or if it is 
# a descendant of a fieldset element whose disabled attribute is set and 
# is not a descendant of that fieldset element's first legend element 
# child, if any.


> Moreover, where needed, a shortcut is to use "an HTML so-and-so element" 
> rather than "a so-and-so element in the HTML namespace".  (This can 
> apply similarly to SVG and MathML.)

I don't understand why this is necessary. I think it would be misleading 
because it would make authors question why other parts of the spec don't 
specify the namespace.

I've added a redundant note to the parser intro about this, but it's 
redundant -- it just references the terminology section and repeats the 
same point again.

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