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Bug 9708 - Remove step 20 from 'Forming a table' section ("table model error")
Summary: Remove step 20 from 'Forming a table' section ("table model error")
Status: RESOLVED NEEDSINFO
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: pre-LC1 HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson) (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All All
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ian 'Hixie' Hickson
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-05-11 10:02 UTC by Andreas Kuckartz
Modified: 2010-10-04 14:32 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments

Description Andreas Kuckartz 2010-05-11 10:02:50 UTC
Copied from http://bugzilla.validator.nu/show_bug.cgi?id=742 :

"I see error messages such as this one for HTML5 code:
Error: Table column 4 established by element col has no cells beginning in it.

I think that this should raise a warning, not an error message."

Reply by Michael(tm) Smith:

"In the 'Forming a table' section of the HTML5 spec, see step 20: 'If there
exists a row or column in the table containing only slots that do not have a
cell anchored to them, then this is a table model error.'"

Error message "element col has no cells beginning in it"
http://bugzilla.validator.nu/show_bug.cgi?id=742

This in some cases makes it very difficult to migrate old applications to HTML5.

In HTML4 one could output a grid using <col>-tags and then generate and output the table rows one by one without. According to the current step 20 one now has to walk thru all rows before the <col>-grid can be generated and output.

Is there any *compelling* need for step 20 ("table model error") in the 'Forming a table' section ?
Comment 1 Andreas Kuckartz 2010-05-11 10:53:02 UTC
A corresponding problem is described here:

Help with HTML validation error: Table column has no cells beginning in it
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2292947/help-with-html-validation-error-table-column-has-no-cells-beginning-in-it
Comment 2 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2010-08-24 22:40:23 UTC
It's supposed to catch cases where the author has created a table with too many columns (a somewhat common problem that can be hard to debug).

I don't understand your use case. Can you describe it in more detail?



EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Did Not Understand Request
Change Description: no spec change
Rationale: Need more details on the use case before determining whether it's worth removing the step or not.