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Asked: 2026-05-23T19:46:57+00:00

I am trying to understand why is there a difference in how a browser

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I am trying to understand why is there a difference in how a browser displays <div></div> verses <div />?

Here is an example: The expected output of snippet #1 is three boxes, side by side: [black], [blue], [red]. Snippet #2 only displays [black] and [red] – Why isn’t the [blue] box rendered in snippet #2?

1:

<div style="float:left; width:50px; height:50px; background:black;"></div>

<div style="float:left; width:50px; height:50px; background:blue;"></div>

<div style="float:left; width:50px; height:50px; background:red;"></div>

2:

<div style="float:left; width:50px; height:50px; background:black;"></div>

<div style="float:left; width:50px; height:50px; background:blue;" />

<div style="float:left; width:50px; height:50px; background:red;"></div>

Edit: I am using Chrome 12 & html5: <!doctype html>

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Mainly because <div /> is not valid HTML.

    If you have a look through the different doctypes you’ll notice that div cannot be self closing.

    According to the W3C:

    A div element must have both a start tag and an end tag.

    Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/div.html

    To include Chucks comment here also, a trailing slash in HTML does not a self closing tag make. Self closing tags using a trailing slash are a feature of XHTML, not HTML.

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