validation issue (HTML 4.01 Strict)

**mniessen** · Oct 28, 2006, 17:23

I want to validate a webpage I've just created, and the only reason it won't validate is this:

Error Line 5 column 76: character data is not allowed here.
...ype" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

You have used character data somewhere it is not permitted to appear. Mistakes that can cause this error include putting text directly in the body of the document without wrapping it in a container element (such as a <p>aragraph</p>) or forgetting to quote an attribute value (where characters such as "%" and "/" are common, but cannot appear without surrounding quotes).

The marked character is the ">" at the end of the line. There is no content whatsoever inside the body that doesn't have a container element, so I don't understand what's the problem.

Hope someone can help me.

Michaël

**brandaggio** · Oct 28, 2006, 18:14

If you want us to troubleshoot your code please post the full, complete page code and/or a link - It can only be guessed at from what you have provided.

**logic_earth** · Oct 28, 2006, 18:19

" />" = XHTML not HTML
" >" = HTML not XHTML

**mniessen** · Oct 28, 2006, 18:25

Nevermind, I found the mistake. I had to remove the / at the closing of each meta tag. It now validates.

Michaël

**mniessen** · Oct 28, 2006, 18:26

Thank, logic_earth. I hadn't seen your post yet when I posted my previous message.

**brandaggio** · Oct 28, 2006, 18:48

Originally Posted by mniessen

Nevermind, I found the mistake. I had to remove the / at the closing of each meta tag. It now validates.

Michaël

The joys of going back and forth between XHTML and HTML eh?! Makes me wish the XHTML bandwagon had never started (or XHTML was HTML and that HTML never really was).

Glad you fixed it

.

**mniessen** · Oct 28, 2006, 20:13

Originally Posted by John Wozniak

The joys of going back and forth between XHTML and HTML eh?! Makes me wish the XHTML bandwagon had never started (or XHTML was HTML and that HTML never really was).

Glad you fixed it

.

The thing that confused me a little (and why I didn't spot the "error" right away and had to start this thread), is that there are a few <br /> and <input type='text' name='name' /> in the page, and yet the validator (http://validator.w3.org/) doesn't say anything about them.

Michaël

**AutisticCuckoo** · Oct 28, 2006, 22:50

When you use <tag/> in HTML, it is equal to <tag>&gt;, i.e., the tag, followed by a greater-than sign.

If you use <br/> somewhere in BODY, it's perfectly valid. It's a break tag followed by a greater-than sign (although all browsers parse it incorrectly).

In the HEAD, however, <meta.../> will be invalid, because you're not allowed to sprinkle greater-than signs inside HEAD. The HEAD element can only contain a few element types; not text.

**DaveWoods** · Oct 30, 2006, 03:51

In that case would

<br /

pass HTML validation? Obviously if the browsers parse this incorrectly then there would obviously be little point in doing this but the question helps to serve my curiosity

**zcorpan** · Oct 30, 2006, 12:59

Originally Posted by csswiz

In that case would

<br /

pass HTML validation?

Yes. So would this:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
 -- this is a >cool< comment --
 [ <!-- another comment --> ]>
<title/my funky title/
<p<button button/button/
<>This is actually a paragraph.</>

**brandaggio** · Oct 30, 2006, 13:22

Originally Posted by zcorpan

Yes. So would this:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
 -- this is a >cool< comment --
 [ <!-- another comment --> ]>
<title/my funky title/
<p<button button/button/
<>This is actually a paragraph.</>

Oh my

- that is pretty funny.

**AutisticCuckoo** · Oct 30, 2006, 23:16

Good luck finding a browser that supports that sort of minimisation, though.

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