Home/ Questions/Q 781765
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-14T20:16:58+00:00

Are there any browser issues with always collapsing empty tags in html. So for

  • 0

Are there any browser issues with always collapsing empty tags in html.
So for example an empty head tag can be written like this

<head></head>

but is can also be written like this 

<head/>

Will the second case cause issues in any scenerio?

Thanks

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You shouldn’t use minimized form for head in XHTML.

    http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#guidelines

    About empty elements:

    http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_3

    Given an empty instance of an element
    whose content model is not EMPTY (for
    example, an empty title or paragraph)
    do not use the minimized form (e.g.
    use <p> </p> and not <p />).

    In other words, paragraph should always be closed in XHTML, in HTML you could go with only opening tag. But if the element is supposed to have content it should be properly opened and closed.

    For example line break has EMPTY content model and can be written as <br /> (same goes for <hr />) but not <div />.

    Also see this SO question.

    Empty Elements (XHTML)

    Shorthand markup in HTML

    • 0