Question

I’m using a small snippet of JS to add a presentational element to my blockquotes (As seen here):

<script type="text/javascript"> 
    $('blockquote.message').append('<span class="arrow" />');   
</script>

But the W3C validator hates that crap:

document type does not allow element “span” here

What am I doing wrong? Is there a way to correct this error, while maintaining the function?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I assume you’re using XHTML? You need wrap your JavaScript in CDATA:

<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
        $('blockquote.message').append('<span class="arrow" />');       
//]]>
</script>

See the XHTML reference here: http://xhtml.com/en/xhtml/reference/script/ – “If the script element contains embedded script and that script contains XHTML markup characters such as <, >, & and “, then the script should be enclosed in CDATA”