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HTML Pages with CSS and JavaScript

textarea empty tag

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posted 15 years ago

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When creating textarea in HTML tags, for initial time when I render the text area with closing </textarea> I am able to view the page fine

But when I remove </textarea> and have the empty text area as in second case, I am not able to view the page properly. (see the attachment, not sure whether the screen shot is attached, but if its not please take this HTML and run it )

Whats wrong with the <textarea/> code?

screenshot.png

Bear Bibeault

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posted 15 years ago

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It's not valid HTML.

HTML is not XML.

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Babji Reddy

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posted 15 years ago

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But even making it as XHTML and now the code is like

And this is a valid XHTML according to the w3c validator http://validator.w3.org/

But I get the same result in IE 7and Firefox 3, but looked well in Chrome!

Bear Bibeault

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posted 15 years ago

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The browsers still do treat XHTML like XML. You'll need to use correct format or it just will not work.

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Babji Reddy

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posted 15 years ago

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But why only textarea. I can see the other fields like input type='text' properly.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
 <head>
<title> Now its XML </title>
</head>
 <body>  
 <form id="myform" action="server.cgi">  
   
  <div>  
     <label id="x111" title="Text area">Text area Proper</label>  
     <div id="x121">  
         <input type ="text" title="text1"  id="x131" name="mytext1"></input>  
     </div>  
 </div>  
 <div>  
     <label id="x112" title="Text area">Text area Proper</label>  
     <div id="x122">  
         <input type ="text" title="text2"  id="x131" name="mytext2" />
     </div>  
 </div>  
   
   
 <div>  
     <label id="x11" title="Text area">Text area Proper</label>  
     <div id="x12">  
         <textarea title="textarea1" rows="3" cols="80" id="x13" name="mytextarea"></textarea>  
     </div>  
 </div>  
   
 <div>  
     <label id="x14" title="Text area">Text area - Improper</label>  
     <div id="x15">  
         <textarea title="textarea2" rows="3" cols="80" id="x16" name="mytextarea2" />  
     </div>  
 </div>  
 </form>  
 </body>  
 </html>

XHTML is supposed to be a standard that browsers adhere to and <textarea/> is a very valid XHTML tag.
Is this a bug in the browser?

Bear Bibeault

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posted 15 years ago

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They have no content. Ever. This also applies to other tags like <script>.

Bottom line is that you cannot use the self-closing syntax for tags that can have content.

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Babji Reddy

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posted 15 years ago

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Then shouldn't this be an XHTML rule that <textarea/> is not a valid XHTML tag though its a valid XML tag?

Bear Bibeault

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What is valid XML or not is completely moot. We can discuss whether something should be valid or not until the cows come home.

The bottom line is what works in the browsers is what needs to be used. What doesn't, doesn't.

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