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by mindctrl-org 2232 days ago
> You don't need to close your tags.

Not always true. I’ve run into numerous issues caused by the lack of closing tags, and just did earlier this week.
2 comments
duxup 2232 days ago
Yeah so many code formatters and such tell me to close the tag .. I'm gonna close it... must be a reason.
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lazyjones 2232 days ago
The reason is that the code formatters are broken and don't support the full html5 specification.
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johncmouser 2232 days ago
they will be nested right. so

  <div>
  <p>
  <h1>
  <h2>
without closing tabs create the DOM tree div->p->h1->h2

if you were actually developing production code and misplaced, let's say, <p>'s closing tag, then that would mess up the rest of your tree (from your perspective -- the computer doesnt care)

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naniwaduni 2232 days ago
This actually produces the DOM equivalent to <div> <p> </p><h1> </h1><h2> </h2></div>.

Many of the rules for unclosed tags are more there so that browsers can agree on what to do with garbage first, and for you to rely on only incidentally! They defer to historical practice before common sense!

In order to predict this reliably, you essentially need to have the list of content categories[1] memorized (or look them up). Not all of them are ... necessarily intuitive.

[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Cont...

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ufo 2232 days ago
Is there a way to get warnings for HTML that looks valid with matching start and end tags but doesn't actually parse the way it is written? I get the impression that we end up needing to memorize those content categories even if we plan to only generate html with all the start and end tags.

For example, <p>A<p>B</p>C</p> looks like two nested <p> but it is parsed as 3<p> next to each other: <p>A</p><p>B</p>C<p></p>.

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naniwaduni 2232 days ago
At the margins, yes, but in practice if you have seemingly balanced opening and closing tags but invalid nesting, the outer close tag generally makes the HTML invalid, for which there's plenty of tooling to check.
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uryga 2232 days ago
i haven't tested it, but MDN says:

"The end tag may be omitted if the <p> element is immediately followed by an <address>, <article>, <aside>, <blockquote>, <div>, <dl>, <fieldset>, <footer>, <form>, <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, <h6>, <header>, <hr>, <menu>, <nav>, <ol>, <pre>, <section>, <table>, <ul> or another <p> element"

(i.e. the things that aren't valid children for a <p>, iirc)

so i believe your example would end up parsing as

  <div>
    <p></p>
    <h1></h1>
    <h2></h2>
  </div>
and not as

  <div>
    <p>
      <h1>
        <h2></h2>
      </h1>
    </p>
  </div>
(i'm not sure how exactly the <h1>/<h2> would behave - an <h1> can't have an <h2> child, but they don't have self-closing rules. it's probably in the spec somewhere)
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