Re: lynx-dev Lynx interprets <a/> as </a>?

[David Woolley]

> wrong with the first link. It seems I mistyped
> <a/> instead of </a>, but Lynx didn't seem
> to mind at all. This doesn't sound right.

The correct interpretation of <a/> is <a></a>.  This is a shorthand notation
in SGML.  I'm not sure if the SGML declaration for HTML allows this 
short hand, but the SGML declaration for XML most certainly does, and, as there
will not be an HTML 5, but rather XHTML, this notation is going to get
more common, although for elements like hr, not a (the correct form of
hr in XHTML is <hr/>).

The current coding reccomendations for XHTML are to only use the short hand
on elements with an optional closing tag and to insert spaces in such a way
that current HTML browsers aren't confused by the / into rejecting the tag
(there is a space before and/or after the / - I can't remember which).

It's not wrong for HTML readers to treat the trailing / as a shorthand
notation, as there is no legitimate meaning for it.