Bug 978 – Validator doesn't require body element

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Bug 978 - Validator doesn't require body element


Summary:	Validator doesn't require body element

Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL

Product:	Validator.nu
Classification:	Unclassified
Component:	General
Version:	HEAD
Hardware:	All All

Importance:	P2 normal
Assigned To:	Nobody

URL:

Depends on:
Blocks:
	Show dependency tree / graph

Reported:	2013-09-05 05:49 CEST by Jonathan Geisler
Modified:	2013-09-05 07:15 CEST (History)
CC List:	1 user (show)

See Also:

Attachments
bad HTML file without body element (137 bytes, text/html) 2013-09-05 05:49 CEST, Jonathan Geisler	Details
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Description Jonathan Geisler 2013-09-05 05:49:41 CEST

Created attachment 230 [details]
bad HTML file without body element

The validator does not require a body element for the HTML document to be considered valid.  According to the W3C candidate recommendation and current editors draft section 4.1.1, the html element must have a head and body element.  I'm attaching a simple test case that should be invalid because it is missing the body element, but passes validation anyway.

Comment 1 Michael[tm] Smith 2013-09-05 07:15:29 CEST

The start tag and end tag for the body element can be omitted. See the "Tag omission in text/html" section here:

  http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/sections.html#the-body-element

[[ 
A body element's start tag can be omitted if the element is empty, or if the first thing inside the body element is not a space character or a comment, except if the first thing inside the body element is a script or style element.
A body element's end tag can be omitted if the body element is not immediately followed by a comment.
]]