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Asked: 2026-05-14T03:42:23+00:00

I’m trying to cleanup my xhtml validation — I’m running my pages through the

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I’m trying to cleanup my xhtml validation — I’m running my pages through the W3C validator. For some puzzling reason it’s not passing on input fields with the autocomplete=”off” attribute:

<input name="kwsearch" id="sli_search_1" type="text" autocomplete="off" onfocus="if(this.defaultValue==this.value) this.value='';"
            onblur="if(this.value=='')this.value=this.defaultValue;" class="searchbox" value="Search" />

I’m using this doctype:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

And this is the validation error:

Line 410, Column 81: there is no attribute “autocomplete”

…li_search_1″ type=”text” autocomplete=”off” onfocus=”if(this.defaultValue==thi…

I thought this was okay with the W3C — but, maybe it’s still in “submission” phase?
http://www.w3.org/Submission/web-forms2/#autocomplete

Thoughts?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The Web forms specification has nothing to do with HTML 4 / XHTML. Sadly, autocomplete will not pass validation.

    I think the only way to achieve valid HTML 4 /XHTML with autocomplete turned off is adding the attribute on page load using JavaScript. Sucks, I know – but I think it’s the only way.

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