[WEB4LIB] Form validation problem

[Chris Gray]

The problem is the <form> tag within the <p> tag -- form is a block level
tag and p only allows inline level content.

The second problem is that <input> is an inline level element and <form>
must contain block level elements.

These problems can be solved (in your sample page) by removing the <p> (or
changing it to div) enclosing the <form> and adding a <div> around the
hidden <input>.

Strict XHTML is very fussy about this distinction between block and
inline.  A key piece of information is that <div> is essentially the only
block level element that can contain block level elements.

Unfortunately the only source I know of for this information is the strict
DTD itself.  Most reference and instructional material on XHTML
concentrate on transitional XHTML.  I've begun work on a tutorial on
strict XHTML and CSS, but I haven't gotten very far yet.

Chris Gray
Library Systems
University of Waterloo


On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Robert Sullivan wrote:

> I have several PicoSearch accounts on our local history site (because of its
> 1500-page limit, I do them for specific areas).
> 
> Now that I'm converting to XHTML, I find the PicoSearch code doesn't validate.
> My test page is
> 
> <http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/census/1835/sch1.html>
> 
> and under 1.0 Strict, the validator complains
> 
> element "form" not allowed here; possible cause is an inline element containing
> a block-level element
> 
> and
> 
> element "input" etc. etc.
> 
> If I test it under 1.0 Transitional, I don't get the second error.
> 
> I haven't done much with forms, so perhaps there's something obvious to one of
> you.  I have already cleaned up the PicoSearch code so that it no longer uses
> uppercase attributes and unquoted values and other things from the bad old
> days, and these are the remaining errors.
> 
> Thanks for any ideas.
> 
> Bob Sullivan                               scp_sulli at sals.edu
> Schenectady County Public Library (NY)     http://www.scpl.org
>