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Bug 11629 - False report of errors in code
Summary: False report of errors in code
Status: RESOLVED INVALID
Alias: None
Product: Validator
Classification: Unclassified
Component: check (show other bugs)
Version: 1.2
Hardware: PC Linux
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: This bug has no owner yet - up for the taking
QA Contact: qa-dev tracking
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2011-01-01 01:04 UTC by George Hayes
Modified: 2011-08-23 19:51 UTC (History)
0 users

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Description George Hayes 2011-01-01 01:04:19 UTC
I received a 9 so called errors of the greater than and less than missing from the beginning of some code.
I went through the page code by and to ensure they are closed and open properly and the order is correct.
The pages are built via a template that doesn't change.
Even on the simplest page it messes up.
http://www.paidtopen.com/template.php
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Should have no errors. That is the html I get when I removed even the <footer></footer> I had in it. It still got to errors.

Having a validator that gives false results isn't worth much.
Hope you get it fixed soon.
Comment 1 Michael[tm] Smith 2011-01-13 23:14:01 UTC
Hi George,

First off, I think this is not related to the HTML5 backend for the validator. The doctype in your document triggers the validator to automatically check your doc using the HTML4 checker.

Anyway, the results you are seeing are correct. You have at least one error in your document: that error is it's missing a required "title" element in the head. And if you want to follow HTML4 rules, you have another error, which is that the body needs to have at least one child element. (That's not a requirement in HTML5 though.)

The problem is just that the error reports the validator gives you do not pinpoint those problems for you.

For cases like this, you might want to try comparing the results you get from the experimental standalone Nu Markup Validation Service:

http://www.w3.org/html/check

If you try your doc with that, it reports:

Error: Element head is missing a required instance of child element title.

Error: Element body is missing a required instance of one or more of the following child elements: address, blockquote, del, div, dl, fieldset, form, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, ins, noscript, ol, p, pre, script, table, ul.