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HTML Versus XHTML
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XHTML is a stricter, more XML-based version of HTML.
What is XHTML?
XHTML stands for EXtensible HyperText Markup Language
XHTML is a stricter, more XML-based version of HTML
XHTML is HTML defined as an XML application
XHTML is supported by all major browsers
Why XHTML?
XML is a markup language where all documents must be marked up correctly (be "well-
formed").
XHTML was developed to make HTML more extensible and flexible to work with other data
formats (such as XML). In addition, browsers ignore errors in HTML pages, and try to display
the website even if it has some errors in the markup. So XHTML comes with a much stricter
error handling.
If you want to study XML, please read our XML Tutorial.
The Most Important Differences from HTML
<!DOCTYPE> is mandatory
The xmlns attribute in <html> is mandatory
<html>, <head>, <title>, and <body> are mandatory
Elements must always be properly nested
Elements must always be closed
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Attribute names must always be in lowercase
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Attribute values must always be quoted
Attribute minimization is forbidden
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XHTML - <!DOCTYPE ....> Is Mandatory
An XHTML document must have an XHTML <!DOCTYPE> declaration.
The <html>, <head>, <title>, and <body> elements must also be present, and the xmlns
attribute in <html> must specify the xml namespace for the document.
Example
Here is an XHTML document with a minimum of required tags:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Title of document</title>
</head>
<body>
some content here...
</body>
</html>
XHTML Elements Must be Properly Nested
In XHTML, elements must always be properly nested within each other, like this:
Correct:
<b><i>Some text</i></b>
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Wrong:
<b><i>Some text</b></i>
XHTML Elements Must Always be Closed
In XHTML, elements must always be closed, like this:
Correct:
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>
Wrong:
<p>This is a paragraph
<p>This is another paragraph
XHTML Empty Elements Must Always be Closed
In XHTML, empty elements must always be closed, like this:
Correct:
A break: <br />
A horizontal rule: <hr />
An image: <img src="happy.gif" alt="Happy face" />
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Wrong:
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A break: <br>
A horizontal rule: <hr>
An image: <img src="happy.gif" alt="Happy face">
XHTML Elements Must be in Lowercase
In XHTML, element names must always be in lowercase, like this:
Correct:
<body>
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
</body>
Wrong:
<BODY>
<P>This is a paragraph</P>
</BODY>
XHTML Attribute Names Must be in Lowercase
In XHTML, attribute names must always be in lowercase, like this:
Correct:
<a href="https://www.w3schools.com/html/">Visit our HTML tutorial</a>
Wrong:
<a HREF="https://www.w3schools.com/html/">Visit
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XHTML Attribute Values Must be Quoted
In XHTML, attribute values must always be quoted, like this:
Correct:
<a href="https://www.w3schools.com/html/">Visit our HTML tutorial</a>
Wrong:
<a href=https://www.w3schools.com/html/>Visit our HTML tutorial</a>
XHTML Attribute Minimization is Forbidden
In XHTML, attribute minimization is forbidden:
Correct:
<input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="car" checked="checked" />
<input type="text" name="lastname" disabled="disabled" />
Wrong:
<input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="car" checked />
<input type="text" name="lastname" disabled />
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