ERROR(?) in content declarations for character tags

Earl Hood (ehood@imagine.convex.com)
Thu, 22 Sep 94 22:33:08 EDT

(I looked through the html-ig/wg/whatever archives and saw no
post about this, so excuse me if this has been pointed out)

According to the HTML 2.0 DTD (level 1) (BTW, the hyperlink labeled
"Current level 2 DTD" at
<URL:http://www.hal.com/users/connolly/html-spec/notes/ReviewTopics.html>
point to html-1.dtd), nested character formatting elements are
allowed. For example, the following is currently legal:

<em>Hello <em>There</em></em>

Does this really make sense.

Here's a diff of the proposed rule changes:

*** html-1.dtd Thu Sep 22 22:19:50 1994
--- html-1.dtd.p Thu Sep 22 22:23:32 1994
***************
*** 80,88 ****

<!ENTITY % pre.content "#PCDATA | A | %font | %phrase">

! <!ELEMENT (%font;) - - (%phrase.content)+>

! <!ELEMENT (%phrase;) - - (%phrase.content)+>

<!ENTITY % img.alt.default "#IMPLIED"
-- ALT attribute optional in Level 1 docs -->
--- 80,98 ----

<!ENTITY % pre.content "#PCDATA | A | %font | %phrase">

! <!ELEMENT EM - - (%phrase.content)+ -(EM | I)>
! <!ELEMENT STRONG - - (%phrase.content)+ -(STRONG | B)>
! <!ELEMENT CODE - - (%phrase.content)+ -(CODE)>
! <!ELEMENT SAMP - - (%phrase.content)+ -(SAMP)>
! <!ELEMENT KBD - - (%phrase.content)+ -(KBD)>
! <!ELEMENT VAR - - (%phrase.content)+ -(VAR)>
! <!ELEMENT CITE - - (%phrase.content)+ -(CITE)>

! <![ %HTML.Proposed [
! <!ELEMENT STRIKE - - (%phrase.content)+ -(STRIKE)>
! <!ELEMENT DFN - - (%phrase.content)+ -(DFN)>
! <!ELEMENT KEY - - (%phrase.content)+ -(KEY)>
! ]]>

<!ENTITY % img.alt.default "#IMPLIED"
-- ALT attribute optional in Level 1 docs -->

----
Earl Hood | CONVEX Computer Corporation
ehood@convex.com | 3000 Waterview Parkway
Phone: (214) 497-4387 | P.O. Box 833851
FAX: (214) 497-4500 | Richardson, TX 75083-3851