Question

You will see many sites with the following type of code:

Script elements:

<script type="text/javascript">
   //javascript here
</script>

Link elements:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="url.css" type="text/css" media="all" />

Style elements:

<style type="text/css">
   /* CSS */
</style>

My question is this:

Are the type attributes needed in the popular browsers today?

(Popular meaning IE 8+, Firefox, Webkit, Opera and Chrome)

What happens if you do not include them?

Note: The answer needs to cover both HTML5 and XHTML doctypes if there is a difference in behavior between the two.

Answer 1

In short, they are not required since HTML5, but are required by W3C standards in HTML4/XHTML.

---

In HTML5 type of script tag:

type – This attribute identifies the scripting language of code embedded
within a script element or referenced via the element’s src attribute.
This is specified as a MIME type; examples of supported MIME types
include text/javascript, text/ecmascript, application/javascript, and
application/ecmascript. If this attribute is absent, the script is
treated as JavaScript.

in HTML4 and XHTML it’s required by W3C standards.

For style and link type:

In HTML5, the type attribute is no longer required. Default value is
“text/css”.