12439 2011-04-06 21:01:07 +0000 Validating a missing HTML tag 2015-08-23 07:07:30 +0000 1 1 1 Unclassified HTML Checker General unspecified PC Windows NT RESOLVED WORKSFORME P2 major --- 1 dawpa2000 mike www-validator-cvs oldest_to_newest 47213 0 dawpa2000 2011-04-06 21:01:07 +0000 Validating a missing HTML tag The HTML sample is missing <html lang="en">. http://validator.w3.org/ This document was successfully checked as HTML5! <!DOCTYPE html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title>Test</title> </head> <body> <section> <h2>Test</h2> </section> </body> </html> 47651 1 mike 2011-04-24 14:41:25 +0000 Hi, The validator is behaving correctly. The HTML language allows the <html> start tag to be omitted. It always has, both in HTML4 and before, and still in HTML5. (XHTML requires it, but that's a different matter). For details, see the following section of the HTML5 spec - http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec-author-view/syntax.html#optional-tags "An html element's start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the html element is not a comment." And, for the sake of comparison, see the following section of the HTML4 spec - http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-HTML Notice the part there that says, "Start tag: optional, End tag: optional".