HTML

Living Standard — Last Updated 2 August 2018

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Table of contents
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 1
2 Common infrastructure........................................................................................................................................................... 2
3 Semantics, structure, and APIs of HTML documents............................................................................................................... 3
4 The elements of HTML ............................................................................................................................................................ 4
5 Microdata.............................................................................................................................................................................. 11
6 User interaction .................................................................................................................................................................... 12
7 Loading Web pages .............................................................................................................................................................. 13
8 Web application APIs ............................................................................................................................................................ 14
9 Communication .................................................................................................................................................................... 16
10 Web workers ....................................................................................................................................................................... 16
11 Web storage ....................................................................................................................................................................... 17
12 The HTML syntax ................................................................................................................................................................ 17
13 The XML syntax .................................................................................................................................................................. 20
14 Rendering ........................................................................................................................................................................... 20
15 Obsolete features ............................................................................................................................................................... 21
16 IANA considerations............................................................................................................................................................ 21
Index........................................................................................................................................................................................ 22
References............................................................................................................................................................................... 22
Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................................................... 22

Full table of contents

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................................... 23
1.1 Where does this specification fit?.................................................................................................................. 23

1.2 Is this HTML5? ............................................................................................................................................... 23

1.3 Background ................................................................................................................................................... 24

1.4 Audience ....................................................................................................................................................... 24

1.5 Scope ............................................................................................................................................................ 24

1.6 History........................................................................................................................................................... 24

1.7 Design notes ................................................................................................................................................. 25

1.7.1 Serializability of script execution ........................................................................................... 26
1.7.2 Compliance with other specifications .................................................................................... 26

1
 1.7.3 Extensibility ........................................................................................................................... 26

1.8 HTML vs XML syntax ..................................................................................................................................... 27

1.9 Structure of this specification........................................................................................................................ 27

1.9.1 How to read this specification................................................................................................ 28
1.9.2 Typographic conventions ....................................................................................................... 29

1.10 Privacy concerns ......................................................................................................................................... 29

1.10.1 Cross-site communication.................................................................................................... 30

1.11 A quick introduction to HTML ...................................................................................................................... 30

1.11.1 Writing secure applications with HTML ................................................................................ 33
1.11.2 Common pitfalls to avoid when using the scripting APIs ..................................................... 34
1.11.3 How to catch mistakes when writing HTML: validators and conformance checkers............. 35

1.12 Conformance requirements for authors ...................................................................................................... 35

1.12.1 Presentational markup......................................................................................................... 35
1.12.2 Syntax errors ....................................................................................................................... 36
1.12.3 Restrictions on content models and on attribute values ...................................................... 38

1.13 Suggested reading ...................................................................................................................................... 40

2 Common infrastructure......................................................................................................................................................... 42
2.1 Terminology................................................................................................................................................... 42
2.1.1 Parallelism ............................................................................................................................. 42
2.1.2 Resources .............................................................................................................................. 43
2.1.3 XML compatibility .................................................................................................................. 44
2.1.4 DOM trees.............................................................................................................................. 44
2.1.5 Scripting ................................................................................................................................ 45
2.1.6 Plugins ................................................................................................................................... 45
2.1.7 Character encodings.............................................................................................................. 45
2.1.8 Conformance classes ............................................................................................................. 46
2.1.9 Dependencies ........................................................................................................................ 48
2.1.10 Extensibility ......................................................................................................................... 62
2.1.11 Interactions with XPath and XSLT......................................................................................... 63

2.2 Case-sensitivity and string comparison......................................................................................................... 64

2.3 Common microsyntaxes................................................................................................................................ 64

2.3.1 Common parser idioms.......................................................................................................... 64
2.3.2 Boolean attributes ................................................................................................................. 65
2.3.3 Keywords and enumerated attributes.................................................................................... 65
2.3.4 Numbers ................................................................................................................................ 66
2.3.4.1 Signed integers .............................................................................................. 66
2.3.4.2 Non-negative integers .................................................................................... 66
2.3.4.3 Floating-point numbers .................................................................................. 66
2.3.4.4 Percentages and lengths ................................................................................ 68
2.3.4.5 Non-zero percentages and lengths................................................................. 69
2.3.4.6 Lists of floating-point numbers....................................................................... 69
2.3.4.7 Lists of dimensions......................................................................................... 70
2.3.5 Dates and times..................................................................................................................... 71
2.3.5.1 Months ........................................................................................................... 71
2.3.5.2 Dates.............................................................................................................. 72
2.3.5.3 Yearless dates ................................................................................................ 73
2.3.5.4 Times.............................................................................................................. 73
2.3.5.5 Local dates and times .................................................................................... 74
2.3.5.6 Time zones ..................................................................................................... 75
2.3.5.7 Global dates and times .................................................................................. 77
2
 2.3.5.8 Weeks............................................................................................................. 78
2.3.5.9 Durations........................................................................................................ 79
2.3.5.10 Vaguer moments in time .............................................................................. 82
2.3.6 Colors .................................................................................................................................... 83
2.3.7 Space-separated tokens ........................................................................................................ 84
2.3.8 Comma-separated tokens...................................................................................................... 85
2.3.9 References ............................................................................................................................. 85
2.3.10 Media queries ...................................................................................................................... 85

2.4 URLs .............................................................................................................................................................. 85

2.4.1 Terminology ........................................................................................................................... 85
2.4.2 Parsing URLs .......................................................................................................................... 86
2.4.3 Dynamic changes to base URLs............................................................................................. 86

2.5 Fetching resources ........................................................................................................................................ 87

2.5.1 Terminology ........................................................................................................................... 87
2.5.2 Determining the type of a resource ....................................................................................... 87
2.5.3 Extracting character encodings from meta elements............................................................. 88
2.5.4 CORS settings attributes........................................................................................................ 88
2.5.5 Referrer policy attributes ....................................................................................................... 89
2.5.6 Nonce attributes .................................................................................................................... 89

2.6 Common DOM interfaces .............................................................................................................................. 90

2.6.1 Reflecting content attributes in IDL attributes ....................................................................... 90
2.6.2 Collections ............................................................................................................................. 91
2.6.2.1 The HTMLAllCollection interface................................................................. 92
2.6.2.1.1 [[Call]] ( thisArgument, argumentsList ) ................................. 94
2.6.2.2 The HTMLFormControlsCollection interface................................................ 94
2.6.2.3 The HTMLOptionsCollection interface ......................................................... 95
2.6.3 The DOMStringList interface ................................................................................................ 97
2.6.4 Garbage collection................................................................................................................. 98

2.7 Safe passing of structured data .................................................................................................................... 98

2.7.1 Serializable objects ................................................................................................................ 98
2.7.2 Transferable objects............................................................................................................... 99
2.7.3 StructuredSerializeInternal ( value, forStorage [ , memory ] ) ............................................. 100
2.7.4 StructuredSerialize ( value ) ................................................................................................ 104
2.7.5 StructuredSerializeForStorage ( value ) ............................................................................... 104
2.7.6 StructuredDeserialize ( serialized, targetRealm [ , memory ] )............................................ 104
2.7.7 StructuredSerializeWithTransfer ( value, transferList )......................................................... 106
2.7.8 StructuredDeserializeWithTransfer ( serializeWithTransferResult, targetRealm )................. 107
2.7.9 Performing serialization and transferring from other specifications .................................... 108

3 Semantics, structure, and APIs of HTML documents........................................................................................................... 110

3.1 Documents .................................................................................................................................................. 110
3.1.1 The Document object............................................................................................................ 110
3.1.2 Resource metadata management........................................................................................ 112
3.1.3 DOM tree accessors ............................................................................................................. 113

3.2 Elements ..................................................................................................................................................... 117

3.2.1 Semantics ............................................................................................................................ 117
3.2.2 Elements in the DOM ........................................................................................................... 120
3.2.3 HTML element constructors ................................................................................................. 121
3.2.4 Element definitions .............................................................................................................. 124
3.2.4.1 Attributes ..................................................................................................... 125

3
 3.2.5 Content models ................................................................................................................... 125
3.2.5.1 The "nothing" content model ....................................................................... 126
3.2.5.2 Kinds of content ........................................................................................... 126
3.2.5.2.1 Metadata content ................................................................. 127
3.2.5.2.2 Flow content ......................................................................... 128
3.2.5.2.3 Sectioning content ................................................................ 128
3.2.5.2.4 Heading content ................................................................... 128
3.2.5.2.5 Phrasing content................................................................... 128
3.2.5.2.6 Embedded content ............................................................... 129
3.2.5.2.7 Interactive content ............................................................... 129
3.2.5.2.8 Palpable content ................................................................... 129
3.2.5.2.9 Script-supporting elements................................................... 129
3.2.5.3 Transparent content models......................................................................... 130
3.2.5.4 Paragraphs ................................................................................................... 130
3.2.6 Global attributes .................................................................................................................. 132
3.2.6.1 The title attribute ...................................................................................... 135
3.2.6.2 The lang and xml:lang attributes ............................................................... 136
3.2.6.3 The translate attribute .............................................................................. 137
3.2.6.4 The dir attribute.......................................................................................... 138
3.2.6.5 The style attribute ...................................................................................... 141
3.2.6.6 Embedding custom non-visible data with the data-* attributes.................. 141
3.2.7 The innerText IDL attribute................................................................................................ 145
3.2.8 Requirements relating to the bidirectional algorithm .......................................................... 146
3.2.8.1 Authoring conformance criteria for bidirectional-algorithm formatting
characters ................................................................................................................ 146
3.2.8.2 User agent conformance criteria .................................................................. 147
3.2.9 Requirements related to ARIA and to platform accessibility APIs......................................... 147

4 The elements of HTML ........................................................................................................................................................ 148

4.1 The document element ............................................................................................................................... 148
4.1.1 The html element ................................................................................................................ 148

4.2 Document metadata ................................................................................................................................... 149

4.2.1 The head element ................................................................................................................ 149
4.2.2 The title element .............................................................................................................. 150
4.2.3 The base element ................................................................................................................ 151
4.2.4 The link element ................................................................................................................ 153
4.2.4.1 Processing the media attribute..................................................................... 156
4.2.4.2 Processing the type attribute....................................................................... 156
4.2.4.3 Obtaining a resource from a link element .................................................. 157
4.2.4.4 Processing `Link` headers........................................................................... 158
4.2.4.5 Providing users with a means to follow hyperlinks created using the link
element .................................................................................................................... 158
4.2.5 The meta element ................................................................................................................ 158
4.2.5.1 Standard metadata names........................................................................... 160
4.2.5.2 Other metadata names ................................................................................ 162
4.2.5.3 Pragma directives......................................................................................... 163
4.2.5.4 Specifying the document's character encoding............................................ 167
4.2.6 The style element .............................................................................................................. 168
4.2.7 Interactions of styling and scripting..................................................................................... 171

4.3 Sections ...................................................................................................................................................... 171

4.3.1 The body element ................................................................................................................ 171
4.3.2 The article element .......................................................................................................... 173
4.3.3 The section element .......................................................................................................... 175
4.3.4 The nav element .................................................................................................................. 178

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 4.3.5 The aside element .............................................................................................................. 181
4.3.6 The h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 elements .............................................................................. 183
4.3.7 The hgroup element ............................................................................................................ 185
4.3.8 The header element ............................................................................................................ 187
4.3.9 The footer element ............................................................................................................ 188
4.3.10 The address element ........................................................................................................ 190
4.3.11 Headings and sections....................................................................................................... 192
4.3.11.1 Creating an outline..................................................................................... 194
4.3.11.2 Sample outlines.......................................................................................... 198
4.3.11.3 Exposing outlines to users ......................................................................... 203
4.3.12 Usage summary................................................................................................................. 203
4.3.12.1 Article or section?....................................................................................... 204

4.4 Grouping content ........................................................................................................................................ 205

4.4.1 The p element...................................................................................................................... 205
4.4.2 The hr element.................................................................................................................... 207
4.4.3 The pre element .................................................................................................................. 209
4.4.4 The blockquote element..................................................................................................... 210
4.4.5 The ol element.................................................................................................................... 213
4.4.6 The ul element.................................................................................................................... 215
4.4.7 The menu element ................................................................................................................ 216
4.4.8 The li element.................................................................................................................... 217
4.4.9 The dl element.................................................................................................................... 219
4.4.10 The dt element.................................................................................................................. 223
4.4.11 The dd element.................................................................................................................. 223
4.4.12 The figure element .......................................................................................................... 224
4.4.13 The figcaption element................................................................................................... 227
4.4.14 The main element .............................................................................................................. 228
4.4.15 The div element ................................................................................................................ 229

4.5 Text-level semantics.................................................................................................................................... 230

4.5.1 The a element...................................................................................................................... 230
4.5.2 The em element.................................................................................................................... 233
4.5.3 The strong element ............................................................................................................ 234
4.5.4 The small element .............................................................................................................. 235
4.5.5 The s element...................................................................................................................... 237
4.5.6 The cite element ................................................................................................................ 237
4.5.7 The q element...................................................................................................................... 239
4.5.8 The dfn element .................................................................................................................. 240
4.5.9 The abbr element ................................................................................................................ 241
4.5.10 The ruby element .............................................................................................................. 243
4.5.11 The rt element.................................................................................................................. 249
4.5.12 The rp element.................................................................................................................. 249
4.5.13 The data element .............................................................................................................. 250
4.5.14 The time element .............................................................................................................. 251
4.5.15 The code element .............................................................................................................. 258
4.5.16 The var element ................................................................................................................ 259
4.5.17 The samp element .............................................................................................................. 260
4.5.18 The kbd element ................................................................................................................ 261
4.5.19 The sub and sup elements................................................................................................. 262
4.5.20 The i element.................................................................................................................... 263
4.5.21 The b element.................................................................................................................... 264
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 4.5.22 The u element.................................................................................................................... 265
4.5.23 The mark element .............................................................................................................. 266
4.5.24 The bdi element ................................................................................................................ 268
4.5.25 The bdo element ................................................................................................................ 269
4.5.26 The span element .............................................................................................................. 270
4.5.27 The br element.................................................................................................................. 270
4.5.28 The wbr element ................................................................................................................ 271
4.5.29 Usage summary................................................................................................................. 272

4.6 Links............................................................................................................................................................ 273

4.6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 273
4.6.2 Links created by a and area elements ................................................................................ 274
4.6.3 API for a and area elements ................................................................................................ 275
4.6.4 Following hyperlinks ............................................................................................................ 280
4.6.5 Downloading resources........................................................................................................ 280
4.6.5.1 Hyperlink auditing ........................................................................................ 282
4.6.6 Link types ............................................................................................................................ 283
4.6.6.1 Link type "alternate" ................................................................................. 285
4.6.6.2 Link type "author" ....................................................................................... 286
4.6.6.3 Link type "bookmark" ................................................................................... 286
4.6.6.4 Link type "canonical" ................................................................................. 287
4.6.6.5 Link type "dns-prefetch"............................................................................ 287
4.6.6.6 Link type "external" ................................................................................... 287
4.6.6.7 Link type "help" ........................................................................................... 287
4.6.6.8 Link type "icon" ........................................................................................... 288
4.6.6.9 Link type "license" ..................................................................................... 289
4.6.6.10 Link type "modulepreload" ........................................................................ 290
4.6.6.11 Link type "nofollow" ................................................................................. 292
4.6.6.12 Link type "noopener" ................................................................................. 292
4.6.6.13 Link type "noreferrer".............................................................................. 292
4.6.6.14 Link type "pingback" ................................................................................. 292
4.6.6.15 Link type "preconnect".............................................................................. 293
4.6.6.16 Link type "prefetch" ................................................................................. 293
4.6.6.17 Link type "preload" ................................................................................... 293
4.6.6.18 Link type "prerender" ............................................................................... 293
4.6.6.19 Link type "search" ..................................................................................... 293
4.6.6.20 Link type "stylesheet".............................................................................. 294
4.6.6.21 Link type "tag" ........................................................................................... 295
4.6.6.22 Sequential link types .................................................................................. 296
4.6.6.22.1 Link type "next" ................................................................. 297
4.6.6.22.2 Link type "prev" ................................................................. 297
4.6.6.23 Other link types.......................................................................................... 297

4.7 Edits ............................................................................................................................................................ 298

4.7.1 The ins element .................................................................................................................. 298
4.7.2 The del element .................................................................................................................. 300
4.7.3 Attributes common to ins and del elements ...................................................................... 300
4.7.4 Edits and paragraphs........................................................................................................... 301
4.7.5 Edits and lists ...................................................................................................................... 302
4.7.6 Edits and tables ................................................................................................................... 303

4.8 Embedded content ...................................................................................................................................... 303

4.8.1 The picture element .......................................................................................................... 303
4.8.2 The source element ............................................................................................................ 304
4.8.3 The img element .................................................................................................................. 307
4.8.4 Images ................................................................................................................................. 314
6
 4.8.4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 314
4.8.4.1.1 Adaptive images ................................................................... 319
4.8.4.2 Attributes common to source and img elements ......................................... 321
4.8.4.2.1 Srcset attributes ................................................................... 321
4.8.4.2.2 Sizes attributes ..................................................................... 322
4.8.4.3 Processing model ......................................................................................... 322
4.8.4.3.1 When to obtain images ......................................................... 324
4.8.4.3.2 Reacting to DOM mutations .................................................. 324
4.8.4.3.3 The list of available images .................................................. 324
4.8.4.3.4 Decoding images .................................................................. 325
4.8.4.3.5 Updating the image data ...................................................... 325
4.8.4.3.6 Selecting an image source.................................................... 329
4.8.4.3.7 Updating the source set........................................................ 329
4.8.4.3.8 Parsing a srcset attribute ...................................................... 330
4.8.4.3.9 Parsing a sizes attribute........................................................ 332
4.8.4.3.10 Normalizing the source densities ........................................ 332
4.8.4.3.11 Reacting to environment changes ...................................... 333
4.8.4.4 Requirements for providing text to act as an alternative for images ........... 334
4.8.4.4.1 General guidelines ................................................................ 334
4.8.4.4.2 A link or button containing nothing but the image ............... 334
4.8.4.4.3 A phrase or paragraph with an alternative graphical
representation: charts, diagrams, graphs, maps, illustrations ............. 335
4.8.4.4.4 A short phrase or label with an alternative graphical
representation: icons, logos ................................................................. 336
4.8.4.4.5 Text that has been rendered to a graphic for typographical
effect ................................................................................................... 338
4.8.4.4.6 A graphical representation of some of the surrounding text. 339
4.8.4.4.7 Ancillary images ................................................................... 340
4.8.4.4.8 A purely decorative image that doesn't add any
information .......................................................................................... 341
4.8.4.4.9 A group of images that form a single larger picture with no
links ..................................................................................................... 341
4.8.4.4.10 A group of images that form a single larger picture with
links ..................................................................................................... 342
4.8.4.4.11 A key part of the content .................................................... 342
4.8.4.4.12 An image not intended for the user .................................... 346
4.8.4.4.13 An image in an e-mail or private document intended for a
specific person who is known to be able to view images ..................... 346
4.8.4.4.14 Guidance for markup generators ........................................ 346
4.8.4.4.15 Guidance for conformance checkers................................... 346
4.8.5 The iframe element ............................................................................................................ 347
4.8.6 The embed element .............................................................................................................. 354
4.8.7 The object element ............................................................................................................ 358
4.8.8 The param element .............................................................................................................. 363
4.8.9 The video element .............................................................................................................. 365
4.8.10 The audio element ............................................................................................................ 368
4.8.11 The track element ............................................................................................................ 370
4.8.12 Media elements ................................................................................................................. 372
4.8.12.1 Error codes ................................................................................................. 374
4.8.12.2 Location of the media resource .................................................................. 375
4.8.12.3 MIME types ................................................................................................. 376
4.8.12.4 Network states ........................................................................................... 377
4.8.12.5 Loading the media resource ....................................................................... 377
4.8.12.6 Offsets into the media resource ................................................................. 387
4.8.12.7 Ready states............................................................................................... 390
4.8.12.8 Playing the media resource ........................................................................ 392
4.8.12.9 Seeking ...................................................................................................... 399
4.8.12.10 Media resources with multiple media tracks ............................................ 401
4.8.12.10.1 AudioTrackList and VideoTrackList objects ................ 401
7
 4.8.12.10.2 Selecting specific audio and video tracks declaratively .... 405
4.8.12.11 Timed text tracks ..................................................................................... 405
4.8.12.11.1 Text track model ............................................................... 405
4.8.12.11.2 Sourcing in-band text tracks ............................................. 409
4.8.12.11.3 Sourcing out-of-band text tracks....................................... 410
4.8.12.11.4 Guidelines for exposing cues in various formats as text track
cues ..................................................................................................... 412
4.8.12.11.5 Text track API .................................................................... 413
4.8.12.11.6 Event handlers for objects of the text track APIs .............. 419
4.8.12.11.7 Best practices for metadata text tracks............................ 419
4.8.12.12 Identifying a track kind through a URL ..................................................... 420
4.8.12.13 User interface........................................................................................... 420
4.8.12.14 Time ranges ............................................................................................. 422
4.8.12.15 The TrackEvent interface ........................................................................ 423
4.8.12.16 Events summary ...................................................................................... 423
4.8.12.17 Security and privacy considerations......................................................... 425
4.8.12.18 Best practices for authors using media elements .................................... 426
4.8.12.19 Best practices for implementers of media elements ................................ 426
4.8.13 The map element ................................................................................................................ 426
4.8.14 The area element .............................................................................................................. 428
4.8.15 Image maps ....................................................................................................................... 430
4.8.15.1 Authoring ................................................................................................... 430
4.8.15.2 Processing model ....................................................................................... 430
4.8.16 MathML .............................................................................................................................. 432
4.8.17 SVG.................................................................................................................................... 433
4.8.18 Dimension attributes ......................................................................................................... 434

4.9 Tabular data ................................................................................................................................................ 435

4.9.1 The table element .............................................................................................................. 435
4.9.1.1 Techniques for describing tables .................................................................. 439
4.9.1.2 Techniques for table design.......................................................................... 442
4.9.2 The caption element .......................................................................................................... 442
4.9.3 The colgroup element ........................................................................................................ 444
4.9.4 The col element .................................................................................................................. 444
4.9.5 The tbody element .............................................................................................................. 445
4.9.6 The thead element .............................................................................................................. 446
4.9.7 The tfoot element .............................................................................................................. 447
4.9.8 The tr element.................................................................................................................... 448
4.9.9 The td element.................................................................................................................... 449
4.9.10 The th element.................................................................................................................. 451
4.9.11 Attributes common to td and th elements ........................................................................ 453
4.9.12 Processing model............................................................................................................... 454
4.9.12.1 Forming a table .......................................................................................... 454
4.9.12.2 Forming relationships between data cells and header cells ....................... 457
4.9.13 Examples ........................................................................................................................... 459

4.10 Forms ........................................................................................................................................................ 461

4.10.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 461
4.10.1.1 Writing a form's user interface ................................................................... 462
4.10.1.2 Implementing the server-side processing for a form .................................. 464
4.10.1.3 Configuring a form to communicate with a server ..................................... 465
4.10.1.4 Client-side form validation ......................................................................... 466
4.10.1.5 Enabling client-side automatic filling of form controls................................ 467
4.10.1.6 Improving the user experience on mobile devices ..................................... 467
4.10.1.7 The difference between the field type, the autofill field name, and the input
modality ................................................................................................................... 468
8
 4.10.1.8 Date, time, and number formats ................................................................ 469
4.10.2 Categories ......................................................................................................................... 470
4.10.3 The form element .............................................................................................................. 470
4.10.4 The label element ............................................................................................................ 474
4.10.5 The input element ............................................................................................................ 476
4.10.5.1 States of the type attribute ....................................................................... 482
4.10.5.1.1 Hidden state (type=hidden) ............................................... 482
4.10.5.1.2 Text (type=text) state and Search state (type=search).... 482
4.10.5.1.3 Telephone state (type=tel) ................................................ 483
4.10.5.1.4 URL state (type=url).......................................................... 483
4.10.5.1.5 E-mail state (type=email) .................................................. 485
4.10.5.1.6 Password state (type=password)........................................ 486
4.10.5.1.7 Date state (type=date) ...................................................... 487
4.10.5.1.8 Month state (type=month) .................................................. 488
4.10.5.1.9 Week state (type=week) ..................................................... 489
4.10.5.1.10 Time state (type=time) .................................................... 490
4.10.5.1.11 Local Date and Time state (type=datetime-local)......... 491
4.10.5.1.12 Number state (type=number)............................................ 492
4.10.5.1.13 Range state (type=range) ................................................ 493
4.10.5.1.14 Color state (type=color) .................................................. 495
4.10.5.1.15 Checkbox state (type=checkbox) ..................................... 496
4.10.5.1.16 Radio Button state (type=radio)...................................... 497
4.10.5.1.17 File Upload state (type=file)........................................... 498
4.10.5.1.18 Submit Button state (type=submit) ................................. 500
4.10.5.1.19 Image Button state (type=image)..................................... 501
4.10.5.1.20 Reset Button state (type=reset)...................................... 503
4.10.5.1.21 Button state (type=button).............................................. 503
4.10.5.2 Implementation notes regarding localization of form controls ................... 504
4.10.5.3 Common input element attributes ............................................................ 504
4.10.5.3.1 The maxlength and minlength attributes .......................... 504
4.10.5.3.2 The size attribute .............................................................. 505
4.10.5.3.3 The readonly attribute....................................................... 505
4.10.5.3.4 The required attribute....................................................... 506
4.10.5.3.5 The multiple attribute....................................................... 506
4.10.5.3.6 The pattern attribute......................................................... 507
4.10.5.3.7 The min and max attributes ................................................. 508
4.10.5.3.8 The step attribute .............................................................. 509
4.10.5.3.9 The list attribute .............................................................. 510
4.10.5.3.10 The placeholder attribute ............................................... 513
4.10.5.4 Common input element APIs..................................................................... 513
4.10.5.5 Common event behaviors .......................................................................... 516
4.10.6 The button element .......................................................................................................... 518
4.10.7 The select element .......................................................................................................... 520
4.10.8 The datalist element ...................................................................................................... 525
4.10.9 The optgroup element ...................................................................................................... 526
4.10.10 The option element ........................................................................................................ 528
4.10.11 The textarea element .................................................................................................... 530
4.10.12 The output element ........................................................................................................ 535
4.10.13 The progress element .................................................................................................... 537
4.10.14 The meter element .......................................................................................................... 539
4.10.15 The fieldset element .................................................................................................... 544
4.10.16 The legend element ........................................................................................................ 546
4.10.17 Form control infrastructure .............................................................................................. 547
4.10.17.1 A form control's value .............................................................................. 547
4.10.17.2 Mutability ................................................................................................. 548
4.10.17.3 Association of controls and forms ............................................................ 548
4.10.18 Attributes common to form controls ................................................................................ 549

9
 4.10.18.1 Naming form controls: the name attribute ................................................ 549
4.10.18.2 Submitting element directionality: the dirname attribute ........................ 550
4.10.18.3 Limiting user input length: the maxlength attribute ................................ 550
4.10.18.4 Setting minimum input length requirements: the minlength attribute.... 551
4.10.18.5 Enabling and disabling form controls: the disabled attribute ................. 551
4.10.18.6 Form submission ...................................................................................... 552
4.10.18.6.1 Autofocusing a form control: the autofocus attribute...... 554
4.10.18.7 Autofill ...................................................................................................... 555
4.10.18.7.1 Autofilling form controls: the autocomplete attribute ...... 555
4.10.18.7.2 Processing model .............................................................. 561
4.10.19 APIs for the text control selections .................................................................................. 567
4.10.20 Constraints ...................................................................................................................... 572
4.10.20.1 Definitions ................................................................................................ 572
4.10.20.2 Constraint validation ................................................................................ 573
4.10.20.3 The constraint validation API.................................................................... 574
4.10.20.4 Security .................................................................................................... 577
4.10.21 Form submission.............................................................................................................. 577
4.10.21.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 577
4.10.21.2 Implicit submission................................................................................... 578
4.10.21.3 Form submission algorithm ...................................................................... 578
4.10.21.4 Constructing the entry list........................................................................ 581
4.10.21.5 Selecting a form submission encoding ..................................................... 583
4.10.21.6 URL-encoded form data............................................................................ 583
4.10.21.7 Multipart form data .................................................................................. 583
4.10.21.8 Plain text form data.................................................................................. 584
4.10.22 Resetting a form .............................................................................................................. 584

4.11 Interactive elements ................................................................................................................................. 584

4.11.1 The details element ........................................................................................................ 584
4.11.2 The summary element ........................................................................................................ 588
4.11.3 Commands......................................................................................................................... 588
4.11.3.1 Facets ......................................................................................................... 588
4.11.3.2 Using the a element to define a command ................................................ 589
4.11.3.3 Using the button element to define a command ....................................... 589
4.11.3.4 Using the input element to define a command ......................................... 589
4.11.3.5 Using the option element to define a command ....................................... 590
4.11.3.6 Using the accesskey attribute on a legend element to define a
command ................................................................................................................. 590
4.11.3.7 Using the accesskey attribute to define a command on other elements... 590
4.11.4 The dialog element .......................................................................................................... 591

4.12 Scripting.................................................................................................................................................... 594

4.12.1 The script element .......................................................................................................... 594
4.12.1.1 Processing model ....................................................................................... 599
4.12.1.2 Scripting languages.................................................................................... 604
4.12.1.3 Restrictions for contents of script elements ............................................ 605
4.12.1.4 Inline documentation for external scripts................................................... 606
4.12.1.5 Interaction of script elements and XSLT .................................................. 607
4.12.2 The noscript element ...................................................................................................... 608
4.12.3 The template element ...................................................................................................... 610
4.12.3.1 Interaction of template elements with XSLT and XPath ............................. 612
4.12.4 The slot element .............................................................................................................. 613
4.12.5 The canvas element .......................................................................................................... 614
4.12.5.1 The 2D rendering context........................................................................... 618
4.12.5.1.1 Implementation notes......................................................... 625
4.12.5.1.2 The canvas state................................................................. 625
4.12.5.1.3 Line styles........................................................................... 625
10
 4.12.5.1.4 Text styles ........................................................................... 629
4.12.5.1.5 Building paths ..................................................................... 633
4.12.5.1.6 Path2D objects.................................................................... 638
4.12.5.1.7 Transformations .................................................................. 638
4.12.5.1.8 Image sources for 2D rendering contexts ........................... 640
4.12.5.1.9 Fill and stroke styles ........................................................... 641
4.12.5.1.10 Drawing rectangles to the bitmap .................................... 645
4.12.5.1.11 Drawing text to the bitmap............................................... 646
4.12.5.1.12 Drawing paths to the canvas ............................................ 648
4.12.5.1.13 Drawing focus rings and scrolling paths into view ............ 651
4.12.5.1.14 Drawing images ................................................................ 652
4.12.5.1.15 Pixel manipulation ............................................................ 654
4.12.5.1.16 Compositing...................................................................... 658
4.12.5.1.17 Image smoothing .............................................................. 658
4.12.5.1.18 Shadows ........................................................................... 659
4.12.5.1.19 Filters ................................................................................ 660
4.12.5.1.20 Working with externally-defined SVG filters...................... 661
4.12.5.1.21 Drawing model.................................................................. 661
4.12.5.1.22 Best practices ................................................................... 661
4.12.5.1.23 Examples .......................................................................... 662
4.12.5.2 The ImageBitmap rendering context .......................................................... 666
4.12.5.2.1 Introduction ........................................................................ 666
4.12.5.2.2 The ImageBitmapRenderingContext interface .................. 667
4.12.5.3 The OffscreenCanvas interface................................................................. 668
4.12.5.3.1 The offscreen 2D rendering context.................................... 671
4.12.5.4 Color spaces and color correction .............................................................. 673
4.12.5.5 Serializing bitmaps to a file ........................................................................ 674
4.12.5.6 Security with canvas elements .................................................................. 674

4.13 Custom elements ...................................................................................................................................... 675

4.13.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 675
4.13.1.1 Creating an autonomous custom element ................................................. 675
4.13.1.2 Creating a customized built-in element...................................................... 676
4.13.1.3 Drawbacks of autonomous custom elements............................................. 677
4.13.1.4 Upgrading elements after their creation .................................................... 679
4.13.2 Requirements for custom element constructors ................................................................ 680
4.13.3 Core concepts .................................................................................................................... 680
4.13.4 The CustomElementRegistry interface............................................................................. 683
4.13.5 Upgrades ........................................................................................................................... 686
4.13.6 Custom element reactions ................................................................................................. 687

4.14 Common idioms without dedicated elements ........................................................................................... 690

4.14.1 The main part of the content ............................................................................................. 690
4.14.2 Bread crumb navigation .................................................................................................... 693
4.14.3 Tag clouds .......................................................................................................................... 693
4.14.4 Conversations .................................................................................................................... 694
4.14.5 Footnotes ........................................................................................................................... 696

4.15 Disabled elements..................................................................................................................................... 698

4.16 Matching HTML elements using selectors and CSS ................................................................................... 698
4.16.1 Case-sensitivity of the CSS 'attr()' function ....................................................................... 698
4.16.2 Case-sensitivity of selectors .............................................................................................. 699
4.16.3 Pseudo-classes .................................................................................................................. 700

5 Microdata............................................................................................................................................................................ 704
5.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 704
5.1.1 Overview.............................................................................................................................. 704
5.1.2 The basic syntax .................................................................................................................. 704

11
 5.1.3 Typed items ......................................................................................................................... 707
5.1.4 Global identifiers for items .................................................................................................. 708
5.1.5 Selecting names when defining vocabularies ...................................................................... 708

5.2 Encoding microdata .................................................................................................................................... 709

5.2.1 The microdata model........................................................................................................... 709
5.2.2 Items.................................................................................................................................... 709
5.2.3 Names: the itemprop attribute ........................................................................................... 712
5.2.4 Values .................................................................................................................................. 713
5.2.5 Associating names with items ............................................................................................. 714
5.2.6 Microdata and other namespaces........................................................................................ 715

5.3 Sample microdata vocabularies .................................................................................................................. 716

5.3.1 vCard ................................................................................................................................... 716
5.3.1.1 Conversion to vCard ..................................................................................... 724
5.3.1.2 Examples...................................................................................................... 728
5.3.2 vEvent ................................................................................................................................. 730
5.3.2.1 Conversion to iCalendar ............................................................................... 734
5.3.2.2 Examples...................................................................................................... 736
5.3.3 Licensing works ................................................................................................................... 736
5.3.3.1 Examples...................................................................................................... 737

5.4 Converting HTML to other formats .............................................................................................................. 737

5.4.1 JSON..................................................................................................................................... 737

6 User interaction .................................................................................................................................................................. 740

6.1 The hidden attribute ................................................................................................................................... 740

6.2 Inert subtrees.............................................................................................................................................. 741

6.3 Activation .................................................................................................................................................... 741

6.4 Focus........................................................................................................................................................... 742

6.4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 742
6.4.2 Data model .......................................................................................................................... 743
6.4.3 The tabindex attribute........................................................................................................ 745
6.4.4 Processing model................................................................................................................. 746
6.4.5 Sequential focus navigation................................................................................................. 749
6.4.6 Focus management APIs...................................................................................................... 751

6.5 Assigning keyboard shortcuts ..................................................................................................................... 752

6.5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 752
6.5.2 The accesskey attribute...................................................................................................... 753
6.5.3 Processing model................................................................................................................. 754

6.6 Editing ......................................................................................................................................................... 755

6.6.1 Making document regions editable: The contenteditable content attribute..................... 755
6.6.2 Making entire documents editable: the designMode IDL attribute....................................... 756
6.6.3 Best practices for in-page editors ........................................................................................ 757
6.6.4 Editing APIs.......................................................................................................................... 757
6.6.5 Spelling and grammar checking .......................................................................................... 757
6.6.6 Autocapitalization ................................................................................................................ 759
6.6.7 Input modalities: the inputmode attribute ........................................................................... 761

6.7 Drag and drop ............................................................................................................................................. 761

6.7.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 762
6.7.2 The drag data store ............................................................................................................. 763
6.7.3 The DataTransfer interface................................................................................................ 764
6.7.3.1 The DataTransferItemList interface ......................................................... 767

12
 6.7.3.2 The DataTransferItem interface................................................................. 769
6.7.4 The DragEvent interface ..................................................................................................... 770
6.7.5 Processing model................................................................................................................. 771
6.7.6 Events summary .................................................................................................................. 776
6.7.7 The draggable attribute...................................................................................................... 777
6.7.8 Security risks in the drag-and-drop model........................................................................... 777

7 Loading Web pages ............................................................................................................................................................ 779

7.1 Browsing contexts ....................................................................................................................................... 779
7.1.1 Nested browsing contexts.................................................................................................... 780
7.1.1.1 Navigating nested browsing contexts in the DOM........................................ 782
7.1.2 Auxiliary browsing contexts ................................................................................................. 783
7.1.2.1 Navigating auxiliary browsing contexts in the DOM ..................................... 784
7.1.3 Security ............................................................................................................................... 784
7.1.4 Groupings of browsing contexts .......................................................................................... 785
7.1.5 Browsing context names...................................................................................................... 785

7.2 Security infrastructure for Window, WindowProxy, and Location objects ................................................... 787
7.2.1 Integration with IDL ............................................................................................................. 787
7.2.2 Shared internal slot: [[CrossOriginPropertyDescriptorMap]] ................................................ 788
7.2.3 Shared abstract operations.................................................................................................. 788
7.2.3.1 CrossOriginProperties ( O ) ........................................................................... 788
7.2.3.2 IsPlatformObjectSameOrigin ( O ) ................................................................ 789
7.2.3.3 CrossOriginGetOwnPropertyHelper ( O, P )................................................... 789
7.2.3.4 CrossOriginGet ( O, P, Receiver ).................................................................. 790
7.2.3.5 CrossOriginSet ( O, P, V, Receiver ) .............................................................. 790
7.2.3.6 CrossOriginOwnPropertyKeys ( O ) ............................................................... 790

7.3 The Window object ....................................................................................................................................... 790

7.3.1 APIs for creating and navigating browsing contexts by name ............................................. 792
7.3.2 Accessing other browsing contexts...................................................................................... 795
7.3.3 Named access on the Window object ................................................................................... 795
7.3.4 Garbage collection and browsing contexts .......................................................................... 796
7.3.5 Closing browsing contexts ................................................................................................... 797
7.3.6 Browser interface elements ................................................................................................. 797
7.3.7 Script settings for Window objects........................................................................................ 798

7.4 The WindowProxy exotic object ................................................................................................................... 799

7.4.1 [[GetPrototypeOf]] ( )........................................................................................................... 800
7.4.2 [[SetPrototypeOf]] ( V ) ........................................................................................................ 800
7.4.3 [[IsExtensible]] ( ) ................................................................................................................ 800
7.4.4 [[PreventExtensions]] ( ) ...................................................................................................... 800
7.4.5 [[GetOwnProperty]] ( P ) ...................................................................................................... 800
7.4.6 [[DefineOwnProperty]] ( P, Desc )........................................................................................ 801
7.4.7 [[Get]] ( P, Receiver )........................................................................................................... 801
7.4.8 [[Set]] ( P, V, Receiver ) ....................................................................................................... 801
7.4.9 [[Delete]] ( P )...................................................................................................................... 802
7.4.10 [[OwnPropertyKeys]] ( ) ..................................................................................................... 802

7.5 Origin .......................................................................................................................................................... 802

7.5.1 Relaxing the same-origin restriction .................................................................................... 804

7.6 Sandboxing ................................................................................................................................................. 805

7.7 Session history and navigation ................................................................................................................... 808

7.7.1 The session history of browsing contexts ............................................................................ 808

13
 7.7.2 The History interface ......................................................................................................... 810
7.7.3 Implementation notes for session history ............................................................................ 815
7.7.4 The Location interface ....................................................................................................... 815
7.7.4.1 [[GetPrototypeOf]] ( ) ................................................................................... 822
7.7.4.2 [[SetPrototypeOf]] ( V ) ................................................................................ 822
7.7.4.3 [[IsExtensible]] ( )......................................................................................... 822
7.7.4.4 [[PreventExtensions]] ( ) .............................................................................. 822
7.7.4.5 [[GetOwnProperty]] ( P )............................................................................... 823
7.7.4.6 [[DefineOwnProperty]] ( P, Desc ) ................................................................ 823
7.7.4.7 [[Get]] ( P, Receiver ) ................................................................................... 823
7.7.4.8 [[Set]] ( P, V, Receiver )................................................................................ 823
7.7.4.9 [[Delete]] ( P ) .............................................................................................. 823
7.7.4.10 [[OwnPropertyKeys]] ( ) .............................................................................. 823

7.8 Browsing the Web ....................................................................................................................................... 824

7.8.1 Navigating across documents.............................................................................................. 824
7.8.2 Page load processing model for HTML files.......................................................................... 831
7.8.3 Page load processing model for XML files ............................................................................ 832
7.8.4 Page load processing model for text files ............................................................................ 832
7.8.5 Page load processing model for multipart/x-mixed-replace resources .......................... 833
7.8.6 Page load processing model for media ................................................................................ 833
7.8.7 Page load processing model for content that uses plugins .................................................. 834
7.8.8 Page load processing model for inline content that doesn't have a DOM ............................ 834
7.8.9 Navigating to a fragment..................................................................................................... 834
7.8.10 History traversal ................................................................................................................ 836
7.8.10.1 Persisted user state restoration.................................................................. 838
7.8.10.2 The PopStateEvent interface .................................................................... 838
7.8.10.3 The HashChangeEvent interface................................................................. 838
7.8.10.4 The PageTransitionEvent interface ......................................................... 839
7.8.11 Unloading documents ........................................................................................................ 839
7.8.11.1 The BeforeUnloadEvent interface............................................................. 841
7.8.12 Aborting a document load ................................................................................................. 842

7.9 Offline Web applications.............................................................................................................................. 842

7.9.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 842
7.9.1.1 Supporting offline caching for legacy applications ....................................... 843
7.9.1.2 Events summary .......................................................................................... 844
7.9.2 Application caches ............................................................................................................... 845
7.9.3 The cache manifest syntax .................................................................................................. 846
7.9.3.1 Some sample manifests ............................................................................... 846
7.9.3.2 Writing cache manifests ............................................................................... 848
7.9.3.3 Parsing cache manifests............................................................................... 849
7.9.4 Downloading or updating an application cache ................................................................... 852
7.9.5 The application cache selection algorithm .......................................................................... 859
7.9.6 Changes to the networking model ....................................................................................... 860
7.9.7 Expiring application caches ................................................................................................. 860
7.9.8 Disk space ........................................................................................................................... 861
7.9.9 Security concerns with offline applications caches .............................................................. 861
7.9.10 Application cache API ........................................................................................................ 861
7.9.11 Browser state..................................................................................................................... 864

8 Web application APIs .......................................................................................................................................................... 866

8.1 Scripting...................................................................................................................................................... 866
8.1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 866
14
 8.1.2 Enabling and disabling scripting .......................................................................................... 866
8.1.3 Processing model................................................................................................................. 866
8.1.3.1 Definitions .................................................................................................... 866
8.1.3.2 Fetching scripts ............................................................................................ 868
8.1.3.3 Creating scripts ............................................................................................ 874
8.1.3.4 Calling scripts............................................................................................... 875
8.1.3.5 Realms, settings objects, and global objects................................................ 877
8.1.3.5.1 Entry ..................................................................................... 880
8.1.3.5.2 Incumbent............................................................................. 880
8.1.3.5.3 Current.................................................................................. 883
8.1.3.5.4 Relevant................................................................................ 883
8.1.3.6 Killing scripts ................................................................................................ 883
8.1.3.7 Integration with the JavaScript job queue .................................................... 884
8.1.3.7.1 EnqueueJob(queueName, job, arguments) ........................... 884
8.1.3.8 Integration with the JavaScript module system ............................................ 885
8.1.3.8.1 HostResolveImportedModule(referencingScriptOrModule,
specifier).............................................................................................. 886
8.1.3.8.2 HostImportModuleDynamically(referencingScriptOrModule,
specifier, promiseCapability) ............................................................... 886
8.1.3.8.3 HostGetImportMetaProperties(moduleRecord) ..................... 887
8.1.3.9 Integration with the JavaScript agent formalism .......................................... 887
8.1.3.10 Integration with the JavaScript agent cluster formalism ............................ 888
8.1.3.11 Runtime script errors.................................................................................. 889
8.1.3.11.1 Runtime script errors in documents .................................... 889
8.1.3.11.2 The ErrorEvent interface................................................... 890
8.1.3.12 Unhandled promise rejections .................................................................... 890
8.1.3.12.1 HostPromiseRejectionTracker(promise, operation).............. 891
8.1.3.12.2 The PromiseRejectionEvent interface.............................. 891
8.1.3.13 HostEnsureCanCompileStrings(callerRealm, calleeRealm)......................... 891
8.1.4 Event loops .......................................................................................................................... 892
8.1.4.1 Definitions .................................................................................................... 892
8.1.4.2 Processing model ......................................................................................... 893
8.1.4.3 Generic task sources .................................................................................... 896
8.1.4.4 Dealing with the event loop from other specifications ................................. 896
8.1.5 Events.................................................................................................................................. 898
8.1.5.1 Event handlers ............................................................................................. 898
8.1.5.2 Event handlers on elements, Document objects, and Window objects........... 903
8.1.5.2.1 IDL definitions ....................................................................... 905
8.1.5.3 Event firing................................................................................................... 906

8.2 The WindowOrWorkerGlobalScope mixin .................................................................................................... 907

8.3 Base64 utility methods ............................................................................................................................... 908

8.4 Dynamic markup insertion .......................................................................................................................... 909

8.4.1 Opening the input stream.................................................................................................... 909
8.4.2 Closing the input stream...................................................................................................... 911
8.4.3 document.write() .............................................................................................................. 911
8.4.4 document.writeln() .......................................................................................................... 912

8.5 Timers ......................................................................................................................................................... 913

8.6 Microtask queuing ....................................................................................................................................... 916

8.7 User prompts............................................................................................................................................... 918

8.7.1 Simple dialogs ..................................................................................................................... 918
8.7.2 Printing ................................................................................................................................ 919

8.8 System state and capabilities ..................................................................................................................... 920

8.8.1 The Navigator object.......................................................................................................... 920
8.8.1.1 Client identification ...................................................................................... 920
8.8.1.2 Language preferences.................................................................................. 922
15
 8.8.1.3 Custom scheme handlers: the registerProtocolHandler() method ........ 923
8.8.1.3.1 Security and privacy ............................................................. 925
8.8.1.4 Cookies......................................................................................................... 926
8.8.1.5 Plugins.......................................................................................................... 926

8.9 Images ........................................................................................................................................................ 931

8.10 Animation frames...................................................................................................................................... 937

9 Communication .................................................................................................................................................................. 938

9.1 The MessageEvent interface ....................................................................................................................... 938

9.2 Server-sent events ...................................................................................................................................... 939

9.2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 939
9.2.2 The EventSource interface.................................................................................................. 940
9.2.3 Processing model................................................................................................................. 942
9.2.4 Parsing an event stream ...................................................................................................... 943
9.2.5 Interpreting an event stream............................................................................................... 943
9.2.6 Authoring notes ................................................................................................................... 946
9.2.7 Connectionless push and other features.............................................................................. 946
9.2.8 Garbage collection............................................................................................................... 947
9.2.9 Implementation advice ........................................................................................................ 947

9.3 Web sockets ................................................................................................................................................ 948

9.3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 948
9.3.2 The WebSocket interface ..................................................................................................... 948
9.3.3 Feedback from the protocol ................................................................................................. 952
9.3.4 Ping and Pong frames .......................................................................................................... 954
9.3.5 The CloseEvent interface.................................................................................................... 954
9.3.6 Garbage collection............................................................................................................... 955

9.4 Cross-document messaging ........................................................................................................................ 956

9.4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 956
9.4.2 Security ............................................................................................................................... 956
9.4.2.1 Authors......................................................................................................... 956
9.4.2.2 User agents .................................................................................................. 957
9.4.3 Posting messages ................................................................................................................ 957

9.5 Channel messaging ..................................................................................................................................... 958

9.5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 958
9.5.1.1 Examples...................................................................................................... 959
9.5.1.2 Ports as the basis of an object-capability model on the Web ....................... 960
9.5.1.3 Ports as the basis of abstracting out service implementations .................... 960
9.5.2 Message channels ............................................................................................................... 961
9.5.3 Message ports ..................................................................................................................... 961
9.5.4 Broadcasting to many ports................................................................................................. 964
9.5.5 Ports and garbage collection ............................................................................................... 964

9.6 Broadcasting to other browsing contexts .................................................................................................... 964

10 Web workers ..................................................................................................................................................................... 968

10.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................... 968
10.1.1 Scope................................................................................................................................. 968
10.1.2 Examples ........................................................................................................................... 968
10.1.2.1 A background number-crunching worker.................................................... 968
10.1.2.2 Using a JavaScript module as a worker ...................................................... 969
10.1.2.3 Shared workers introduction ...................................................................... 971
10.1.2.4 Shared state using a shared worker ........................................................... 973
16
 10.1.2.5 Delegation.................................................................................................. 977
10.1.2.6 Providing libraries....................................................................................... 979
10.1.3 Tutorials ............................................................................................................................. 982
10.1.3.1 Creating a dedicated worker ...................................................................... 982
10.1.3.2 Communicating with a dedicated worker ................................................... 983
10.1.3.3 Shared workers .......................................................................................... 983

10.2 Infrastructure ............................................................................................................................................ 984

10.2.1 The global scope................................................................................................................ 984
10.2.1.1 The WorkerGlobalScope common interface .............................................. 984
10.2.1.2 Dedicated workers and the DedicatedWorkerGlobalScope interface ....... 986
10.2.1.3 Shared workers and the SharedWorkerGlobalScope interface.................. 987
10.2.2 The event loop ................................................................................................................... 987
10.2.3 The worker's lifetime ......................................................................................................... 987
10.2.4 Processing model............................................................................................................... 988
10.2.5 Runtime script errors ......................................................................................................... 990
10.2.6 Creating workers................................................................................................................ 991
10.2.6.1 The AbstractWorker mixin ........................................................................ 991
10.2.6.2 Script settings for workers.......................................................................... 991
10.2.6.3 Dedicated workers and the Worker interface ............................................. 992
10.2.6.4 Shared workers and the SharedWorker interface....................................... 993
10.2.7 Concurrent hardware capabilities ...................................................................................... 995

10.3 APIs available to workers .......................................................................................................................... 996

10.3.1 Importing scripts and libraries ........................................................................................... 996
10.3.2 The WorkerNavigator interface ........................................................................................ 996
10.3.3 The WorkerLocation interface .......................................................................................... 996

11 Web storage ..................................................................................................................................................................... 998

11.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................... 998

11.2 The API ...................................................................................................................................................... 999

11.2.1 The Storage interface ....................................................................................................... 999
11.2.2 The sessionStorage attribute ........................................................................................ 1000
11.2.3 The localStorage attribute ............................................................................................ 1001
11.2.4 The storage event .......................................................................................................... 1002
11.2.4.1 The StorageEvent interface .................................................................... 1002

11.3 Disk space............................................................................................................................................... 1003

11.4 Privacy .................................................................................................................................................... 1003

11.4.1 User tracking ................................................................................................................... 1003
11.4.2 Sensitivity of data ............................................................................................................ 1004

11.5 Security ................................................................................................................................................... 1004

11.5.1 DNS spoofing attacks....................................................................................................... 1004
11.5.2 Cross-directory attacks .................................................................................................... 1005
11.5.3 Implementation risks ....................................................................................................... 1005

12 The HTML syntax ............................................................................................................................................................ 1006

12.1 Writing HTML documents ........................................................................................................................ 1006
12.1.1 The DOCTYPE................................................................................................................... 1006
12.1.2 Elements.......................................................................................................................... 1007
12.1.2.1 Start tags ................................................................................................. 1008
12.1.2.2 End tags ................................................................................................... 1009
12.1.2.3 Attributes ................................................................................................. 1009
12.1.2.4 Optional tags............................................................................................ 1010
12.1.2.5 Restrictions on content models ................................................................ 1016
17
 12.1.2.6 Restrictions on the contents of raw text and escapable raw text
elements ................................................................................................................ 1016
12.1.3 Text .................................................................................................................................. 1016
12.1.3.1 Newlines................................................................................................... 1016
12.1.4 Character references ....................................................................................................... 1016
12.1.5 CDATA sections ................................................................................................................ 1017
12.1.6 Comments ....................................................................................................................... 1017

12.2 Parsing HTML documents ........................................................................................................................ 1017

12.2.1 Overview of the parsing model ........................................................................................ 1019
12.2.2 Parse errors...................................................................................................................... 1020
12.2.3 The input byte stream ..................................................................................................... 1024
12.2.3.1 Parsing with a known character encoding ................................................ 1025
12.2.3.2 Determining the character encoding........................................................ 1025
12.2.3.3 Character encodings ................................................................................ 1030
12.2.3.4 Changing the encoding while parsing ...................................................... 1030
12.2.3.5 Preprocessing the input stream................................................................ 1030
12.2.4 Parse state ....................................................................................................................... 1031
12.2.4.1 The insertion mode .................................................................................. 1031
12.2.4.2 The stack of open elements ..................................................................... 1032
12.2.4.3 The list of active formatting elements...................................................... 1034
12.2.4.4 The element pointers ............................................................................... 1035
12.2.4.5 Other parsing state flags.......................................................................... 1035
12.2.5 Tokenization ..................................................................................................................... 1035
12.2.5.1 Data state ................................................................................................ 1036
12.2.5.2 RCDATA state............................................................................................ 1037
12.2.5.3 RAWTEXT state ......................................................................................... 1037
12.2.5.4 Script data state....................................................................................... 1037
12.2.5.5 PLAINTEXT state ....................................................................................... 1038
12.2.5.6 Tag open state.......................................................................................... 1038
12.2.5.7 End tag open state ................................................................................... 1038
12.2.5.8 Tag name state......................................................................................... 1038
12.2.5.9 RCDATA less-than sign state..................................................................... 1039
12.2.5.10 RCDATA end tag open state.................................................................... 1039
12.2.5.11 RCDATA end tag name state................................................................... 1039
12.2.5.12 RAWTEXT less-than sign state ................................................................ 1040
12.2.5.13 RAWTEXT end tag open state ................................................................. 1040
12.2.5.14 RAWTEXT end tag name state ................................................................ 1040
12.2.5.15 Script data less-than sign state .............................................................. 1041
12.2.5.16 Script data end tag open state ............................................................... 1041
12.2.5.17 Script data end tag name state.............................................................. 1041
12.2.5.18 Script data escape start state ................................................................ 1042
12.2.5.19 Script data escape start dash state........................................................ 1042
12.2.5.20 Script data escaped state....................................................................... 1042
12.2.5.21 Script data escaped dash state .............................................................. 1042
12.2.5.22 Script data escaped dash dash state ..................................................... 1043
12.2.5.23 Script data escaped less-than sign state................................................ 1043
12.2.5.24 Script data escaped end tag open state................................................. 1043
12.2.5.25 Script data escaped end tag name state................................................ 1044
12.2.5.26 Script data double escape start state .................................................... 1044
12.2.5.27 Script data double escaped state ........................................................... 1044
12.2.5.28 Script data double escaped dash state .................................................. 1045
12.2.5.29 Script data double escaped dash dash state.......................................... 1045
12.2.5.30 Script data double escaped less-than sign state .................................... 1045
12.2.5.31 Script data double escape end state ...................................................... 1046

18
 12.2.5.32 Before attribute name state ................................................................... 1046
12.2.5.33 Attribute name state .............................................................................. 1046
12.2.5.34 After attribute name state...................................................................... 1047
12.2.5.35 Before attribute value state ................................................................... 1048
12.2.5.36 Attribute value (double-quoted) state .................................................... 1048
12.2.5.37 Attribute value (single-quoted) state ..................................................... 1048
12.2.5.38 Attribute value (unquoted) state ............................................................ 1049
12.2.5.39 After attribute value (quoted) state........................................................ 1049
12.2.5.40 Self-closing start tag state...................................................................... 1049
12.2.5.41 Bogus comment state ............................................................................ 1050
12.2.5.42 Markup declaration open state............................................................... 1050
12.2.5.43 Comment start state .............................................................................. 1050
12.2.5.44 Comment start dash state...................................................................... 1051
12.2.5.45 Comment state ...................................................................................... 1051
12.2.5.46 Comment less-than sign state................................................................ 1051
12.2.5.47 Comment less-than sign bang state....................................................... 1051
12.2.5.48 Comment less-than sign bang dash state .............................................. 1052
12.2.5.49 Comment less-than sign bang dash dash state...................................... 1052
12.2.5.50 Comment end dash state ....................................................................... 1052
12.2.5.51 Comment end state................................................................................ 1052
12.2.5.52 Comment end bang state....................................................................... 1052
12.2.5.53 DOCTYPE state ....................................................................................... 1053
12.2.5.54 Before DOCTYPE name state .................................................................. 1053
12.2.5.55 DOCTYPE name state ............................................................................. 1054
12.2.5.56 After DOCTYPE name state..................................................................... 1054
12.2.5.57 After DOCTYPE public keyword state ...................................................... 1055
12.2.5.58 Before DOCTYPE public identifier state .................................................. 1055
12.2.5.59 DOCTYPE public identifier (double-quoted) state ................................... 1056
12.2.5.60 DOCTYPE public identifier (single-quoted) state..................................... 1056
12.2.5.61 After DOCTYPE public identifier state ..................................................... 1056
12.2.5.62 Between DOCTYPE public and system identifiers state .......................... 1057
12.2.5.63 After DOCTYPE system keyword state .................................................... 1057
12.2.5.64 Before DOCTYPE system identifier state ................................................ 1058
12.2.5.65 DOCTYPE system identifier (double-quoted) state ................................. 1058
12.2.5.66 DOCTYPE system identifier (single-quoted) state................................... 1059
12.2.5.67 After DOCTYPE system identifier state ................................................... 1059
12.2.5.68 Bogus DOCTYPE state ............................................................................ 1059
12.2.5.69 CDATA section state ............................................................................... 1060
12.2.5.70 CDATA section bracket state .................................................................. 1060
12.2.5.71 CDATA section end state ........................................................................ 1060
12.2.5.72 Character reference state ...................................................................... 1060
12.2.5.73 Named character reference state........................................................... 1060
12.2.5.74 Ambiguous ampersand state ................................................................. 1061
12.2.5.75 Numeric character reference state......................................................... 1061
12.2.5.76 Hexademical character reference start state ......................................... 1062
12.2.5.77 Decimal character reference start state................................................. 1062
12.2.5.78 Hexademical character reference state ................................................. 1062
12.2.5.79 Decimal character reference state ......................................................... 1062
12.2.5.80 Numeric character reference end state.................................................. 1063
12.2.6 Tree construction ............................................................................................................. 1063
12.2.6.1 Creating and inserting nodes ................................................................... 1064
12.2.6.2 Parsing elements that contain only text ................................................... 1069
12.2.6.3 Closing elements that have implied end tags .......................................... 1070
12.2.6.4 The rules for parsing tokens in HTML content .......................................... 1070
12.2.6.4.1 The "initial" insertion mode .............................................. 1070
12.2.6.4.2 The "before html" insertion mode..................................... 1071
19
 12.2.6.4.3 The "before head" insertion mode .................................... 1072
12.2.6.4.4 The "in head" insertion mode ........................................... 1073
12.2.6.4.5 The "in head noscript" insertion mode.............................. 1075
12.2.6.4.6 The "after head" insertion mode....................................... 1076
12.2.6.4.7 The "in body" insertion mode ........................................... 1077
12.2.6.4.8 The "text" insertion mode ................................................. 1086
12.2.6.4.9 The "in table" insertion mode ........................................... 1088
12.2.6.4.10 The "in table text" insertion mode .................................. 1090
12.2.6.4.11 The "in caption" insertion mode ..................................... 1090
12.2.6.4.12 The "in column group" insertion mode ........................... 1091
12.2.6.4.13 The "in table body" insertion mode ................................ 1092
12.2.6.4.14 The "in row" insertion mode ........................................... 1092
12.2.6.4.15 The "in cell" insertion mode............................................ 1093
12.2.6.4.16 The "in select" insertion mode ........................................ 1094
12.2.6.4.17 The "in select in table" insertion mode ........................... 1096
12.2.6.4.18 The "in template" insertion mode ................................... 1096
12.2.6.4.19 The "after body" insertion mode ..................................... 1097
12.2.6.4.20 The "in frameset" insertion mode ................................... 1098
12.2.6.4.21 The "after frameset" insertion mode .............................. 1099
12.2.6.4.22 The "after after body" insertion mode ............................ 1099
12.2.6.4.23 The "after after frameset" insertion mode ...................... 1100
12.2.6.5 The rules for parsing tokens in foreign content ........................................ 1100
12.2.7 The end............................................................................................................................ 1102
12.2.8 Coercing an HTML DOM into an infoset............................................................................ 1103
12.2.9 An introduction to error handling and strange cases in the parser .................................. 1104
12.2.9.1 Misnested tags: <b><i></b></i> .......................................................... 1104
12.2.9.2 Misnested tags: <b><p></b></p> ........................................................ 1105
12.2.9.3 Unexpected markup in tables................................................................... 1106
12.2.9.4 Scripts that modify the page as it is being parsed ................................... 1108
12.2.9.5 The execution of scripts that are moving across multiple documents...... 1109
12.2.9.6 Unclosed formatting elements ................................................................. 1109

12.3 Serializing HTML fragments..................................................................................................................... 1110

12.4 Parsing HTML fragments ......................................................................................................................... 1114

12.5 Named character references................................................................................................................... 1116

13 The XML syntax .............................................................................................................................................................. 1125

13.1 Writing documents in the XML syntax ..................................................................................................... 1125

13.2 Parsing XML documents .......................................................................................................................... 1125

13.3 Serializing XML fragments....................................................................................................................... 1127

13.4 Parsing XML fragments ........................................................................................................................... 1128

14 Rendering ....................................................................................................................................................................... 1129

14.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 1129

14.2 The CSS user agent style sheet and presentational hints ....................................................................... 1129

14.3 Non-replaced elements ........................................................................................................................... 1130

14.3.1 Hidden elements.............................................................................................................. 1130
14.3.2 The page.......................................................................................................................... 1130
14.3.3 Flow content .................................................................................................................... 1131
14.3.4 Phrasing content.............................................................................................................. 1133
14.3.5 Bidirectional text ............................................................................................................. 1134
14.3.6 Quotes ............................................................................................................................. 1135
14.3.7 Sections and headings..................................................................................................... 1141
14.3.8 Lists ................................................................................................................................. 1142
14.3.9 Tables............................................................................................................................... 1143
20
 14.3.10 Margin collapsing quirks ................................................................................................ 1147
14.3.11 Form controls ................................................................................................................. 1148
14.3.12 The hr element.............................................................................................................. 1148
14.3.13 The fieldset and legend elements ............................................................................. 1149

14.4 Replaced elements.................................................................................................................................. 1150

14.4.1 Embedded content .......................................................................................................... 1150
14.4.2 Images ............................................................................................................................. 1151
14.4.3 Attributes for embedded content and images ................................................................. 1152
14.4.4 Image maps ..................................................................................................................... 1153

14.5 Widgets ................................................................................................................................................... 1153

14.5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1153
14.5.2 The button element ........................................................................................................ 1153
14.5.3 The details and summary elements ............................................................................... 1153
14.5.4 The input element as a text entry widget ...................................................................... 1154
14.5.5 The input element as domain-specific widgets .............................................................. 1154
14.5.6 The input element as a range control ............................................................................ 1154
14.5.7 The input element as a color well................................................................................... 1155
14.5.8 The input element as a checkbox and radio button widgets .......................................... 1155
14.5.9 The input element as a file upload control ..................................................................... 1155
14.5.10 The input element as a button ..................................................................................... 1155
14.5.11 The marquee element .................................................................................................... 1155
14.5.12 The meter element ........................................................................................................ 1156
14.5.13 The progress element .................................................................................................. 1157
14.5.14 The select element ...................................................................................................... 1157
14.5.15 The textarea element .................................................................................................. 1158

14.6 Frames and framesets............................................................................................................................. 1158

14.7 Interactive media .................................................................................................................................... 1160

14.7.1 Links, forms, and navigation............................................................................................ 1160
14.7.2 The title attribute ......................................................................................................... 1161
14.7.3 Editing hosts .................................................................................................................... 1161
14.7.4 Text rendered in native user interfaces ........................................................................... 1161

14.8 Print media.............................................................................................................................................. 1163

14.9 Unstyled XML documents ........................................................................................................................ 1163

15 Obsolete features ........................................................................................................................................................... 1165

15.1 Obsolete but conforming features........................................................................................................... 1165
15.1.1 Warnings for obsolete but conforming features ............................................................... 1165

15.2 Non-conforming features......................................................................................................................... 1166

15.3 Requirements for implementations ......................................................................................................... 1171

15.3.1 The marquee element ...................................................................................................... 1171
15.3.2 Frames ............................................................................................................................. 1173
15.3.3 Other elements, attributes and APIs ................................................................................ 1175

16 IANA considerations........................................................................................................................................................ 1185

16.1 text/html............................................................................................................................................... 1185

16.2 multipart/x-mixed-replace ................................................................................................................ 1186

16.3 application/xhtml+xml ........................................................................................................................ 1187

16.4 text/cache-manifest............................................................................................................................ 1188

16.5 text/ping............................................................................................................................................... 1189

21
 16.6 application/microdata+json............................................................................................................... 1190

16.7 text/event-stream................................................................................................................................ 1191

16.8 `Ping-From`............................................................................................................................................ 1192

16.9 `Ping-To` ............................................................................................................................................... 1192

16.10 `Refresh` ............................................................................................................................................. 1192

16.11 `Last-Event-ID` .................................................................................................................................. 1193

16.12 web+ scheme prefix ............................................................................................................................... 1193

Index.................................................................................................................................................................................... 1195
Elements ......................................................................................................................................................... 1195

Element content categories ............................................................................................................................ 1201

Attributes ........................................................................................................................................................ 1202

Element Interfaces .......................................................................................................................................... 1210

All Interfaces ................................................................................................................................................... 1212

Events ............................................................................................................................................................. 1212

MIME Types...................................................................................................................................................... 1214

References........................................................................................................................................................................... 1217

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................................................... 1225

22
1 Introduction § p23
⋰ Spec bug

1.1 Where does this specification fit? § p23

This specification defines a big part of the Web platform, in lots of detail. Its place in the Web platform specification stack relative to
other specifications can be best summed up as follows:

CSS SVG MathML NPAPI

Geo Fetch CSP
JPEG GIF PNG

THIS SPECIFICATION

HTTP TLS MQ DOM Unicode Web IDL

MIME URL XML JavaScript Encodings

1.2 Is this HTML5? § p23

This section is non-normative.

In short: Yes.

23
 In more length: the term "HTML5" is widely used as a buzzword to refer to modern Web technologies, many of which (though by no
means all) are developed at the WHATWG. This document is one such; others are available from the WHATWG specification index.

Note
Although we have asked them to stop doing so, the W3C also republishes some parts of this specification as separate documents.

1.3 Background § p24

This section is non-normative.

HTML is the World Wide Web's core markup language. Originally, HTML was primarily designed as a language for semantically
describing scientific documents. Its general design, however, has enabled it to be adapted, over the subsequent years, to describe a
number of other types of documents and even applications.

1.4 Audience § p24

This section is non-normative.

This specification is intended for authors of documents and scripts that use the features defined in this specification, implementers of
tools that operate on pages that use the features defined in this specification, and individuals wishing to establish the correctness of
documents or implementations with respect to the requirements of this specification.

This document is probably not suited to readers who do not already have at least a passing familiarity with Web technologies, as in
places it sacrifices clarity for precision, and brevity for completeness. More approachable tutorials and authoring guides can provide a
gentler introduction to the topic.

In particular, familiarity with the basics of DOM is necessary for a complete understanding of some of the more technical parts of this
specification. An understanding of Web IDL, HTTP, XML, Unicode, character encodings, JavaScript, and CSS will also be helpful in places
but is not essential.

1.5 Scope § p24

This section is non-normative.

This specification is limited to providing a semantic-level markup language and associated semantic-level scripting APIs for authoring
accessible pages on the Web ranging from static documents to dynamic applications.

The scope of this specification does not include providing mechanisms for media-specific customization of presentation (although
default rendering rules for Web browsers are included at the end of this specification, and several mechanisms for hooking into CSS are
provided as part of the language).

The scope of this specification is not to describe an entire operating system. In particular, hardware configuration software, image
manipulation tools, and applications that users would be expected to use with high-end workstations on a daily basis are out of scope.
In terms of applications, this specification is targeted specifically at applications that would be expected to be used by users on an
occasional basis, or regularly but from disparate locations, with low CPU requirements. Examples of such applications include online
purchasing systems, searching systems, games (especially multiplayer online games), public telephone books or address books,
communications software (e-mail clients, instant messaging clients, discussion software), document editing software, etc.

1.6 History § p24

This section is non-normative.

For its first five years (1990-1995), HTML went through a number of revisions and experienced a number of extensions, primarily
24
hosted first at CERN, and then at the IETF.

With the creation of the W3C, HTML's development changed venue again. A first abortive attempt at extending HTML in 1995 known as
HTML 3.0 then made way to a more pragmatic approach known as HTML 3.2, which was completed in 1997. HTML4 quickly followed
later that same year.

The following year, the W3C membership decided to stop evolving HTML and instead begin work on an XML-based equivalent, called
XHTML. This effort started with a reformulation of HTML4 in XML, known as XHTML 1.0, which added no new features except the new
serialization, and which was completed in 2000. After XHTML 1.0, the W3C's focus turned to making it easier for other working groups
to extend XHTML, under the banner of XHTML Modularization. In parallel with this, the W3C also worked on a new language that was
not compatible with the earlier HTML and XHTML languages, calling it XHTML2.

Around the time that HTML's evolution was stopped in 1998, parts of the API for HTML developed by browser vendors were specified
and published under the name DOM Level 1 (in 1998) and DOM Level 2 Core and DOM Level 2 HTML (starting in 2000 and culminating
in 2003). These efforts then petered out, with some DOM Level 3 specifications published in 2004 but the working group being closed
before all the Level 3 drafts were completed.

In 2003, the publication of XForms, a technology which was positioned as the next generation of Web forms, sparked a renewed
interest in evolving HTML itself, rather than finding replacements for it. This interest was borne from the realization that XML's
deployment as a Web technology was limited to entirely new technologies (like RSS and later Atom), rather than as a replacement for
existing deployed technologies (like HTML).

A proof of concept to show that it was possible to extend HTML4's forms to provide many of the features that XForms 1.0 introduced,
without requiring browsers to implement rendering engines that were incompatible with existing HTML Web pages, was the first result
of this renewed interest. At this early stage, while the draft was already publicly available, and input was already being solicited from
all sources, the specification was only under Opera Software's copyright.

The idea that HTML's evolution should be reopened was tested at a W3C workshop in 2004, where some of the principles that underlie
the HTML5 work (described below), as well as the aforementioned early draft proposal covering just forms-related features, were
presented to the W3C jointly by Mozilla and Opera. The proposal was rejected on the grounds that the proposal conflicted with the
previously chosen direction for the Web's evolution; the W3C staff and membership voted to continue developing XML-based
replacements instead.

Shortly thereafter, Apple, Mozilla, and Opera jointly announced their intent to continue working on the effort under the umbrella of a
new venue called the WHATWG. A public mailing list was created, and the draft was moved to the WHATWG site. The copyright was
subsequently amended to be jointly owned by all three vendors, and to allow reuse of the specification.

The WHATWG was based on several core principles, in particular that technologies need to be backwards compatible, that
specifications and implementations need to match even if this means changing the specification rather than the implementations, and
that specifications need to be detailed enough that implementations can achieve complete interoperability without reverse-
engineering each other.

The latter requirement in particular required that the scope of the HTML5 specification include what had previously been specified in
three separate documents: HTML4, XHTML1, and DOM2 HTML. It also meant including significantly more detail than had previously
been considered the norm.

In 2006, the W3C indicated an interest to participate in the development of HTML5 after all, and in 2007 formed a working group
chartered to work with the WHATWG on the development of the HTML5 specification. Apple, Mozilla, and Opera allowed the W3C to
publish the specification under the W3C copyright, while keeping a version with the less restrictive license on the WHATWG site.

For a number of years, both groups then worked together. In 2011, however, the groups came to the conclusion that they had different
goals: the W3C wanted to publish a "finished" version of "HTML5", while the WHATWG wanted to continue working on a Living Standard
for HTML, continuously maintaining the specification rather than freezing it in a state with known problems, and adding new features
as needed to evolve the platform.

Since then, the WHATWG has been working on this specification (amongst others), and the W3C has been copying fixes made by the
WHATWG into their fork of the document (which also has other changes).

1.7 Design notes § p25

This section is non-normative.

25
 It must be admitted that many aspects of HTML appear at first glance to be nonsensical and inconsistent.

HTML, its supporting DOM APIs, as well as many of its supporting technologies, have been developed over a period of several decades
by a wide array of people with different priorities who, in many cases, did not know of each other's existence.

Features have thus arisen from many sources, and have not always been designed in especially consistent ways. Furthermore, because
of the unique characteristics of the Web, implementation bugs have often become de-facto, and now de-jure, standards, as content is
often unintentionally written in ways that rely on them before they can be fixed.

Despite all this, efforts have been made to adhere to certain design goals. These are described in the next few subsections.

1.7.1 Serializability of script execution § p26

This section is non-normative.

To avoid exposing Web authors to the complexities of multithreading, the HTML and DOM APIs are designed such that no script can
ever detect the simultaneous execution of other scripts. Even with workers p992 , the intent is that the behavior of implementations can
be thought of as completely serializing the execution of all scripts in all browsing contexts p779 .

The exception to this general design principle is the JavaScript SharedArrayBuffer class. Using SharedArrayBuffer objects, it can in
fact be observed that scripts in other agents are executing simultaneously. Furthermore, due to the JavaScript memory model, there
are situations which not only are un-representable via serialized script execution, but also un-representable via serialized statement
execution among those scripts.

1.7.2 Compliance with other specifications § p26

This section is non-normative.

This specification interacts with and relies on a wide variety of other specifications. In certain circumstances, unfortunately, conflicting
needs have led to this specification violating the requirements of these other specifications. Whenever this has occurred, the
transgressions have each been noted as a "willful violation", and the reason for the violation has been noted.

1.7.3 Extensibility § p26

This section is non-normative.

HTML has a wide array of extensibility mechanisms that can be used for adding semantics in a safe manner:

• Authors can use the class p133 attribute to extend elements, effectively creating their own elements, while using the most
applicable existing "real" HTML element, so that browsers and other tools that don't know of the extension can still support it
somewhat well. This is the tack used by microformats, for example.

• Authors can include data for inline client-side scripts or server-side site-wide scripts to process using the data-*="" p141
attributes. These are guaranteed to never be touched by browsers, and allow scripts to include data on HTML elements that
scripts can then look for and process.

• Authors can use the <meta name="" content=""> p158 mechanism to include page-wide metadata.

• Authors can use the rel="" p274 mechanism to annotate links with specific meanings by registering extensions to the
predefined set of link types p297 . This is also used by microformats.

• Authors can embed raw data using the <script type=""> p594 mechanism with a custom type, for further handling by inline
or server-side scripts.

• Authors can create plugins p45 and invoke them using the embed p354 element. This is how Flash works.

• Authors can extend APIs using the JavaScript prototyping mechanism. This is widely used by script libraries, for instance.

• Authors can use the microdata feature (the itemscope="" p709 and itemprop="" p712 attributes) to embed nested name-value

26
 pairs of data to be shared with other applications and sites.

1.8 HTML vs XML syntax § p27

This section is non-normative.

This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-
memory representations of resources that use this language.

The in-memory representation is known as "DOM HTML", or "the DOM" for short.

There are various concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined
in this specification.

The first such concrete syntax is the HTML syntax. This is the format suggested for most authors. It is compatible with most legacy
Web browsers. If a document is transmitted with the text/html p1185 MIME type, then it will be processed as an HTML document by Web
browsers. This specification defines the latest HTML syntax, known simply as "HTML".

The second concrete syntax is XML. When a document is transmitted with an XML MIME type, such as application/xhtml+xml p1187 ,
then it is treated as an XML document by Web browsers, to be parsed by an XML processor. Authors are reminded that the processing
for XML and HTML differs; in particular, even minor syntax errors will prevent a document labeled as XML from being rendered fully,
whereas they would be ignored in the HTML syntax.

Note
The XML syntax for HTML was formerly referred to as "XHTML", but this specification does not use that term (among other reasons,
because no such term is used for the HTML syntaxes of MathML and SVG).

The DOM, the HTML syntax, and the XML syntax cannot all represent the same content. For example, namespaces cannot be
represented using the HTML syntax, but they are supported in the DOM and in the XML syntax. Similarly, documents that use the
noscript p608 feature can be represented using the HTML syntax, but cannot be represented with the DOM or in the XML syntax.
Comments that contain the string "-->" can only be represented in the DOM, not in the HTML and XML syntaxes.

1.9 Structure of this specification § p27

This section is non-normative.

This specification is divided into the following major sections:

Introduction p23
Non-normative materials providing a context for the HTML standard.

Common infrastructure p42

The conformance classes, algorithms, definitions, and the common underpinnings of the rest of the specification.

Semantics, structure, and APIs of HTML documents p110

Documents are built from elements. These elements form a tree using the DOM. This section defines the features of this DOM, as
well as introducing the features common to all elements, and the concepts used in defining elements.

The elements of HTML p148

Each element has a predefined meaning, which is explained in this section. Rules for authors on how to use the element, along with
user agent requirements for how to handle each element, are also given. This includes large signature features of HTML such as
video playback and subtitles, form controls and form submission, and a 2D graphics API known as the HTML canvas.

Microdata p704
This specification introduces a mechanism for adding machine-readable annotations to documents, so that tools can extract trees of
name-value pairs from the document. This section describes this mechanism and some algorithms that can be used to convert
HTML documents into other formats. This section also defines some sample Microdata vocabularies for contact information,
calendar events, and licensing works.

27
 User interaction p740
HTML documents can provide a number of mechanisms for users to interact with and modify content, which are described in this
section, such as how focus works, and drag-and-drop.

Loading Web pages p779

HTML documents do not exist in a vacuum — this section defines many of the features that affect environments that deal with
multiple pages, such as Web browsers and offline caching of Web applications.

Web application APIs p866

This section introduces basic features for scripting of applications in HTML.

Web workers p968

This section defines an API for background threads in JavaScript.

The communication APIs p938

This section describes some mechanisms that applications written in HTML can use to communicate with other applications from
different domains running on the same client. It also introduces a server-push event stream mechanism known as Server Sent
Events or EventSource p940 , and a two-way full-duplex socket protocol for scripts known as Web Sockets.

Web storage p998

This section defines a client-side storage mechanism based on name-value pairs.

The HTML syntax p1006

The XML syntax p1125
All of these features would be for naught if they couldn't be represented in a serialized form and sent to other people, and so these
sections define the syntaxes of HTML and XML, along with rules for how to parse content using those syntaxes.

Rendering p1129
This section defines the default rendering rules for Web browsers.

There are also some appendices, listing obsolete features p1165 and IANA considerations p1185 , and several indices.

1.9.1 How to read this specification § p28

This specification should be read like all other specifications. First, it should be read cover-to-cover, multiple times. Then, it should be
read backwards at least once. Then it should be read by picking random sections from the contents list and following all the cross-
references.

As described in the conformance requirements section below, this specification describes conformance criteria for a variety of
conformance classes. In particular, there are conformance requirements that apply to producers, for example authors and the
documents they create, and there are conformance requirements that apply to consumers, for example Web browsers. They can be
distinguished by what they are requiring: a requirement on a producer states what is allowed, while a requirement on a consumer
states how software is to act.

Example

For example, "the foo attribute's value must be a valid integer p66 " is a requirement on producers, as it lays out the allowed values;
in contrast, the requirement "the foo attribute's value must be parsed using the rules for parsing integers p66 " is a requirement on
consumers, as it describes how to process the content.

Requirements on producers have no bearing whatsoever on consumers.

Example

Continuing the above example, a requirement stating that a particular attribute's value is constrained to being a valid integer p66
emphatically does not imply anything about the requirements on consumers. It might be that the consumers are in fact required to
treat the attribute as an opaque string, completely unaffected by whether the value conforms to the requirements or not. It might
be (as in the previous example) that the consumers are required to parse the value using specific rules that define how invalid
(non-numeric in this case) values are to be processed.

28
1.9.2 Typographic conventions § p29

This is a definition, requirement, or explanation.

Note
This is a note.

Example
This is an example.

This is an open issue.

⚠Warning!
This is a warning.

IDL
[Exposed=Window]
interface Example {
// this is an IDL definition
};

For web developers (non-normative)

variable = object . method p29 ( [ optionalArgument ] )

This is a note to authors describing the usage of an interface.

CSS
/* this is a CSS fragment */

The defining instance of a term is marked up like this. Uses of that term are marked up like this p29 or like this p29 .

The defining instance of an element, attribute, or API is marked up like this. References to that element, attribute, or API are marked
up like this p29 .

Other code fragments are marked up like this.

Variables are marked up like this.

In an algorithm, steps in synchronous sections p895 are marked with ⌛.

In some cases, requirements are given in the form of lists with conditions and corresponding requirements. In such cases, the
requirements that apply to a condition are always the first set of requirements that follow the condition, even in the case of there being
multiple sets of conditions for those requirements. Such cases are presented as follows:

↪ This is a condition
↪ This is another condition
This is the requirement that applies to the conditions above.

↪ This is a third condition

This is the requirement that applies to the third condition.

1.10 Privacy concerns § p29

This section is non-normative.

Some features of HTML trade user convenience for a measure of user privacy.

In general, due to the Internet's architecture, a user can be distinguished from another by the user's IP address. IP addresses do not
perfectly match to a user; as a user moves from device to device, or from network to network, their IP address will change; similarly,
29
 NAT routing, proxy servers, and shared computers enable packets that appear to all come from a single IP address to actually map to
multiple users. Technologies such as onion routing can be used to further anonymize requests so that requests from a single user at
one node on the Internet appear to come from many disparate parts of the network.

However, the IP address used for a user's requests is not the only mechanism by which a user's requests could be related to each
other. Cookies, for example, are designed specifically to enable this, and are the basis of most of the Web's session features that
enable you to log into a site with which you have an account.

There are other mechanisms that are more subtle. Certain characteristics of a user's system can be used to distinguish groups of users
from each other; by collecting enough such information, an individual user's browser's "digital fingerprint" can be computed, which can
be as good as, if not better than, an IP address in ascertaining which requests are from the same user.

Grouping requests in this manner, especially across multiple sites, can be used for both benign (and even arguably positive) purposes,
as well as for malevolent purposes. An example of a reasonably benign purpose would be determining whether a particular person
seems to prefer sites with dog illustrations as opposed to sites with cat illustrations (based on how often they visit the sites in
question) and then automatically using the preferred illustrations on subsequent visits to participating sites. Malevolent purposes,
however, could include governments combining information such as the person's home address (determined from the addresses they
use when getting driving directions on one site) with their apparent political affiliations (determined by examining the forum sites that
they participate in) to determine whether the person should be prevented from voting in an election.

Since the malevolent purposes can be remarkably evil, user agent implementers are encouraged to consider how to provide their users
with tools to minimize leaking information that could be used to fingerprint a user.

Unfortunately, as the first paragraph in this section implies, sometimes there is great benefit to be derived from exposing the very
information that can also be used for fingerprinting purposes, so it's not as easy as simply blocking all possible leaks. For instance, the
ability to log into a site to post under a specific identity requires that the user's requests be identifiable as all being from the same
user, more or less by definition. More subtly, though, information such as how wide text is, which is necessary for many effects that
involve drawing text onto a canvas (e.g. any effect that involves drawing a border around the text) also leaks information that can be
used to group a user's requests. (In this case, by potentially exposing, via a brute force search, which fonts a user has installed,
information which can vary considerably from user to user.)

Features in this specification which can be used to fingerprint the user are marked as this paragraph is.

Other features in the platform can be used for the same purpose, though, including, though not limited to:
p30
• The exact list of which features a user agents supports.

• The maximum allowed stack depth for recursion in script.

• Features that describe the user's environment, like Media Queries and the Screen object. [MQ] p1221 [CSSOMVIEW] p1218

• The user's time zone.

1.10.1 Cross-site communication § p30

The postMessage() p957 API provides a mechanism by which two sites can communicate directly. At first glance, this might appear to
open a new way by which the problems described above can occur. However, in practice, multiple mechanisms exist by which two sites
can communicate that predate this API: a site embedding another can send data via an iframe p347 element's dimensions; a site can
use a cross-site image request with a unique identifier known to the server to initiate a server-side data exchange; or indeed the
fingerprinting techniques described above can be used by two sites to uniquely identify a visitor such that information can then be
exchanged on the server side.

Fundamentally, users that do not trust a site to treat their information with respect have to avoid visiting that site at all.

1.11 A quick introduction to HTML § p30

This section is non-normative.

A basic HTML document looks like this:

30
 <!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Sample page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Sample page</h1>
<p>This is a <a href="demo.html">simple</a> sample.</p>
<!-- this is a comment -->
</body>
</html>

HTML documents consist of a tree of elements and text. Each element is denoted in the source by a start tag p1008 , such as "<body>",
and an end tag p1009 , such as "</body>". (Certain start tags and end tags can in certain cases be omitted p1010 and are implied by other
tags.)

Tags have to be nested such that elements are all completely within each other, without overlapping:

<p>This is <em>very <strong>wrong</em>!</strong></p>

<p>This <em>is <strong>correct</strong>.</em></p>

This specification defines a set of elements that can be used in HTML, along with rules about the ways in which the elements can be
nested.

Elements can have attributes, which control how the elements work. In the example below, there is a hyperlink p273 , formed using the
a p230 element and its href p274 attribute:

<a href="demo.html">simple</a>

Attributes p1009 are placed inside the start tag, and consist of a name p1009 and a value p1009 , separated by an "=" character. The attribute
value can remain unquoted p1009 if it doesn't contain ASCII whitespace or any of " ' ` = < or >. Otherwise, it has to be quoted using
either single or double quotes. The value, along with the "=" character, can be omitted altogether if the value is the empty string.

<!-- empty attributes -->

<input name=address disabled>
<input name=address disabled="">

<!-- attributes with a value -->

<input name=address maxlength=200>
<input name=address maxlength='200'>
<input name=address maxlength="200">

HTML user agents (e.g. Web browsers) then parse this markup, turning it into a DOM (Document Object Model) tree. A DOM tree is an
in-memory representation of a document.

DOM trees contain several kinds of nodes, in particular a DocumentType node, Element nodes, Text nodes, Comment nodes, and in
some cases ProcessingInstruction nodes.

The markup snippet at the top of this section p31 would be turned into the following DOM tree:

DOCTYPE: html
html p148 lang p136 ="en"
head p149
#text: ⏎␣␣
title p150
#text: Sample page
#text: ⏎␣
#text: ⏎␣
body p171
#text: ⏎␣␣

31
 h1 p183
#text: Sample page
#text: ⏎␣␣
p p205
#text: This is a
a p230 href p274 ="demo.html"
#text: simple
#text: sample.
#text: ⏎␣␣
#comment: this is a comment
#text: ⏎␣⏎

The document element of this tree is the html p148 element, which is the element always found in that position in HTML documents. It
contains two elements, head p149 and body p171 , as well as a Text node between them.

There are many more Text nodes in the DOM tree than one would initially expect, because the source contains a number of spaces
(represented here by "␣") and line breaks ("⏎") that all end up as Text nodes in the DOM. However, for historical reasons not all of the
spaces and line breaks in the original markup appear in the DOM. In particular, all the whitespace before head p149 start tag ends up
being dropped silently, and all the whitespace after the body p171 end tag ends up placed at the end of the body p171 .

The head p149 element contains a title p150 element, which itself contains a Text node with the text "Sample page". Similarly, the
body p171 element contains an h1 p183 element, a p p205 element, and a comment.

This DOM tree can be manipulated from scripts in the page. Scripts (typically in JavaScript) are small programs that can be embedded
using the script p594 element or using event handler content attributes p899 . For example, here is a form with a script that sets the value
of the form's output p535 element to say "Hello World":

<form name="main">
Result: <output name="result"></output>
<script>
document.forms.main.elements.result.value = 'Hello World';
</script>
</form>

Each element in the DOM tree is represented by an object, and these objects have APIs so that they can be manipulated. For instance,
a link (e.g. the a p230 element in the tree above) can have its "href p274 " attribute changed in several ways:

var a = document.links[0]; // obtain the first link in the document

a.href = 'sample.html'; // change the destination URL of the link
a.protocol = 'https'; // change just the scheme part of the URL
a.setAttribute('href', 'https://example.com/'); // change the content attribute directly

Since DOM trees are used as the way to represent HTML documents when they are processed and presented by implementations
(especially interactive implementations like Web browsers), this specification is mostly phrased in terms of DOM trees, instead of the
markup described above.

HTML documents represent a media-independent description of interactive content. HTML documents might be rendered to a screen,
or through a speech synthesizer, or on a braille display. To influence exactly how such rendering takes place, authors can use a styling
language such as CSS.

In the following example, the page has been made yellow-on-blue using CSS.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Sample styled page</title>
<style>
body { background: navy; color: yellow; }
</style>

32
 </head>
<body>
<h1>Sample styled page</h1>
<p>This page is just a demo.</p>
</body>
</html>

For more details on how to use HTML, authors are encouraged to consult tutorials and guides. Some of the examples included in this
specification might also be of use, but the novice author is cautioned that this specification, by necessity, defines the language with a
level of detail that might be difficult to understand at first.

1.11.1 Writing secure applications with HTML § p33

This section is non-normative.

When HTML is used to create interactive sites, care needs to be taken to avoid introducing vulnerabilities through which attackers can
compromise the integrity of the site itself or of the site's users.

A comprehensive study of this matter is beyond the scope of this document, and authors are strongly encouraged to study the matter
in more detail. However, this section attempts to provide a quick introduction to some common pitfalls in HTML application
development.

The security model of the Web is based on the concept of "origins", and correspondingly many of the potential attacks on the Web
involve cross-origin actions. [ORIGIN] p1221

Not validating user input

Cross-site scripting (XSS)
SQL injection
When accepting untrusted input, e.g. user-generated content such as text comments, values in URL parameters, messages from
third-party sites, etc, it is imperative that the data be validated before use, and properly escaped when displayed. Failing to do this
can allow a hostile user to perform a variety of attacks, ranging from the potentially benign, such as providing bogus user
information like a negative age, to the serious, such as running scripts every time a user looks at a page that includes the
information, potentially propagating the attack in the process, to the catastrophic, such as deleting all data in the server.

When writing filters to validate user input, it is imperative that filters always be safelist-based, allowing known-safe constructs and
disallowing all other input. Blocklist-based filters that disallow known-bad inputs and allow everything else are not secure, as not
everything that is bad is yet known (for example, because it might be invented in the future).

Example
For example, suppose a page looked at its URL's query string to determine what to display, and the site then redirected the user
to that page to display a message, as in:

<ul>
<li><a href="message.cgi?say=Hello">Say Hello</a>
<li><a href="message.cgi?say=Welcome">Say Welcome</a>
<li><a href="message.cgi?say=Kittens">Say Kittens</a>
</ul>

If the message was just displayed to the user without escaping, a hostile attacker could then craft a URL that contained a script
element:

https://example.com/message.cgi?say=%3Cscript%3Ealert%28%27Oh%20no%21%27%29%3C/script%3E
If the attacker then convinced a victim user to visit this page, a script of the attacker's choosing would run on the page. Such a
script could do any number of hostile actions, limited only by what the site offers: if the site is an e-commerce shop, for
instance, such a script could cause the user to unknowingly make arbitrarily many unwanted purchases.

This is called a cross-site scripting attack.

There are many constructs that can be used to try to trick a site into executing code. Here are some that authors are encouraged to
consider when writing safelist filters:

33
 • When allowing harmless-seeming elements like img p307 , it is important to safelist any provided attributes as well. If one
allowed all attributes then an attacker could, for instance, use the onload p904 attribute to run arbitrary script.

• When allowing URLs to be provided (e.g. for links), the scheme of each URL also needs to be explicitly safelisted, as there
are many schemes that can be abused. The most prominent example is "javascript: p825 ", but user agents can
implement (and indeed, have historically implemented) others.

• Allowing a base p151 element to be inserted means any script p594 elements in the page with relative links can be hijacked,
and similarly that any form submissions can get redirected to a hostile site.

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)

If a site allows a user to make form submissions with user-specific side-effects, for example posting messages on a forum under the
user's name, making purchases, or applying for a passport, it is important to verify that the request was made by the user
intentionally, rather than by another site tricking the user into making the request unknowingly.

This problem exists because HTML forms can be submitted to other origins.

Sites can prevent such attacks by populating forms with user-specific hidden tokens, or by checking `Origin` headers on all
requests.

Clickjacking
A page that provides users with an interface to perform actions that the user might not wish to perform needs to be designed so as
to avoid the possibility that users can be tricked into activating the interface.

One way that a user could be so tricked is if a hostile site places the victim site in a small iframe p347 and then convinces the user to
click, for instance by having the user play a reaction game. Once the user is playing the game, the hostile site can quickly position
the iframe under the mouse cursor just as the user is about to click, thus tricking the user into clicking the victim site's interface.

To avoid this, sites that do not expect to be used in frames are encouraged to only enable their interface if they detect that they are
not in a frame (e.g. by comparing the window p792 object to the value of the top p782 attribute).

1.11.2 Common pitfalls to avoid when using the scripting APIs § p34

This section is non-normative.

Scripts in HTML have "run-to-completion" semantics, meaning that the browser will generally run the script uninterrupted before doing
anything else, such as firing further events or continuing to parse the document.

On the other hand, parsing of HTML files happens incrementally, meaning that the parser can pause at any point to let scripts run. This
is generally a good thing, but it does mean that authors need to be careful to avoid hooking event handlers after the events could have
possibly fired.

There are two techniques for doing this reliably: use event handler content attributes p899 , or create the element and add the event
handlers in the same script. The latter is safe because, as mentioned earlier, scripts are run to completion before further events can
fire.

Example

One way this could manifest itself is with img p307 elements and the load p1213 event. The event could fire as soon as the element has
been parsed, especially if the image has already been cached (which is common).

Here, the author uses the onload p904 handler on an img p307 element to catch the load p1213 event:

<img src="games.png" alt="Games" onload="gamesLogoHasLoaded(event)">

If the element is being added by script, then so long as the event handlers are added in the same script, the event will still not be
missed:

<script>
var img = new Image();
img.src = 'games.png';

34
 img.alt = 'Games';
img.onload = gamesLogoHasLoaded;
// img.addEventListener('load', gamesLogoHasLoaded, false); // would work also
</script>

However, if the author first created the img p307 element and then in a separate script added the event listeners, there's a chance
that the load p1213 event would be fired in between, leading it to be missed:

<!-- Do not use this style, it has a race condition! -->

<img id="games" src="games.png" alt="Games">
<!-- the 'load' event might fire here while the parser is taking a
break, in which case you will not see it! -->
<script>
var img = document.getElementById('games');
img.onload = gamesLogoHasLoaded; // might never fire!
</script>

1.11.3 How to catch mistakes when writing HTML: validators and conformance checkers § p35

This section is non-normative.

Authors are encouraged to make use of conformance checkers (also known as validators) to catch common mistakes. The WHATWG
maintains a list of such tools at: https://whatwg.org/validator/

1.12 Conformance requirements for authors § p35

This section is non-normative.

Unlike previous versions of the HTML specification, this specification defines in some detail the required processing for invalid
documents as well as valid documents.

However, even though the processing of invalid content is in most cases well-defined, conformance requirements for documents are
still important: in practice, interoperability (the situation in which all implementations process particular content in a reliable and
identical or equivalent way) is not the only goal of document conformance requirements. This section details some of the more
common reasons for still distinguishing between a conforming document and one with errors.

1.12.1 Presentational markup § p35

This section is non-normative.

The majority of presentational features from previous versions of HTML are no longer allowed. Presentational markup in general has
been found to have a number of problems:

The use of presentational elements leads to poorer accessibility

While it is possible to use presentational markup in a way that provides users of assistive technologies (ATs) with an acceptable
experience (e.g. using ARIA), doing so is significantly more difficult than doing so when using semantically-appropriate markup.
Furthermore, even using such techniques doesn't help make pages accessible for non-AT non-graphical users, such as users of text-
mode browsers.

Using media-independent markup, on the other hand, provides an easy way for documents to be authored in such a way that they
work for more users (e.g. users of text browsers).

35
 Higher cost of maintenance
It is significantly easier to maintain a site written in such a way that the markup is style-independent. For example, changing the
color of a site that uses <font color=""> throughout requires changes across the entire site, whereas a similar change to a site
based on CSS can be done by changing a single file.

Larger document sizes

Presentational markup tends to be much more redundant, and thus results in larger document sizes.

For those reasons, presentational markup has been removed from HTML in this version. This change should not come as a surprise;
HTML4 deprecated presentational markup many years ago and provided a mode (HTML4 Transitional) to help authors move away from
presentational markup; later, XHTML 1.1 went further and obsoleted those features altogether.

The only remaining presentational markup features in HTML are the style p141 attribute and the style p168 element. Use of the style p141
attribute is somewhat discouraged in production environments, but it can be useful for rapid prototyping (where its rules can be
directly moved into a separate style sheet later) and for providing specific styles in unusual cases where a separate style sheet would
be inconvenient. Similarly, the style p168 element can be useful in syndication or for page-specific styles, but in general an external
style sheet is likely to be more convenient when the styles apply to multiple pages.

It is also worth noting that some elements that were previously presentational have been redefined in this specification to be media-
independent: b p264 , i p263 , hr p207 , s p237 , small p235 , and u p265 .

1.12.2 Syntax errors § p36

This section is non-normative.

The syntax of HTML is constrained to avoid a wide variety of problems.

Unintuitive error-handling behavior

Certain invalid syntax constructs, when parsed, result in DOM trees that are highly unintuitive.

Example
For example, the following markup fragment results in a DOM with an hr p207 element that is an earlier sibling of the
corresponding table p435 element:

<table><hr>...

Errors with optional error recovery

To allow user agents to be used in controlled environments without having to implement the more bizarre and convoluted error
handling rules, user agents are permitted to fail whenever encountering a parse error p1020 .

Errors where the error-handling behavior is not compatible with streaming user agents
Some error-handling behavior, such as the behavior for the <table><hr>... example mentioned above, are incompatible with
streaming user agents (user agents that process HTML files in one pass, without storing state). To avoid interoperability problems
with such user agents, any syntax resulting in such behavior is considered invalid.

Errors that can result in infoset coercion

When a user agent based on XML is connected to an HTML parser, it is possible that certain invariants that XML enforces, such as
element or attribute names never contain multiple colons, will be violated by an HTML file. Handling this can require that the parser
coerce the HTML DOM into an XML-compatible infoset. Most syntax constructs that require such handling are considered invalid.
(Comments containing two consecutive hyphens, or ending with a hyphen, are exceptions that are allowed in the HTML syntax.)

Errors that result in disproportionately poor performance

Certain syntax constructs can result in disproportionately poor performance. To discourage the use of such constructs, they are
typically made non-conforming.

Example
For example, the following markup results in poor performance, since all the unclosed i p263 elements have to be reconstructed
in each paragraph, resulting in progressively more elements in each paragraph:

36
 <p><i>She dreamt.
<p><i>She dreamt that she ate breakfast.
<p><i>Then lunch.
<p><i>And finally dinner.

The resulting DOM for this fragment would be:

p p205
i p263
#text: She dreamt.
p p205
i p263
i p263
#text: She dreamt that she ate breakfast.
p p205
i p263
i p263
i p263
#text: Then lunch.
p p205
i p263
i p263
i p263
i p263
#text: And finally dinner.

Errors involving fragile syntax constructs

There are syntax constructs that, for historical reasons, are relatively fragile. To help reduce the number of users who accidentally
run into such problems, they are made non-conforming.

Example
For example, the parsing of certain named character references in attributes happens even with the closing semicolon being
omitted. It is safe to include an ampersand followed by letters that do not form a named character reference, but if the letters
are changed to a string that does form a named character reference, they will be interpreted as that character instead.

In this fragment, the attribute's value is "?bill&ted":

<a href="?bill&ted">Bill and Ted</a>

In the following fragment, however, the attribute's value is actually "?art©", not the intended "?art&copy", because even
without the final semicolon, "&copy" is handled the same as "&copy;" and thus gets interpreted as "©":

<a href="?art&copy">Art and Copy</a>

To avoid this problem, all named character references are required to end with a semicolon, and uses of named character
references without a semicolon are flagged as errors.

Thus, the correct way to express the above cases is as follows:

<a href="?bill&ted">Bill and Ted</a> <!-- &ted is ok, since it's not a named character reference
-->

<a href="?art&amp;copy">Art and Copy</a> <!-- the & has to be escaped, since &copy is a named
character reference -->

Errors involving known interoperability problems in legacy user agents

Certain syntax constructs are known to cause especially subtle or serious problems in legacy user agents, and are therefore marked
as non-conforming to help authors avoid them.

Example

37
 For example, this is why the U+0060 GRAVE ACCENT character (`) is not allowed in unquoted attributes. In certain legacy user
agents, it is sometimes treated as a quote character.

Example
Another example of this is the DOCTYPE, which is required to trigger no-quirks mode, because the behavior of legacy user
agents in quirks mode is often largely undocumented.

Errors that risk exposing authors to security attacks

Certain restrictions exist purely to avoid known security problems.

Example
For example, the restriction on using UTF-7 exists purely to avoid authors falling prey to a known cross-site-scripting attack
using UTF-7. [UTF7] p1223

Cases where the author's intent is unclear

Markup where the author's intent is very unclear is often made non-conforming. Correcting these errors early makes later
maintenance easier.

Example
For example, it is unclear whether the author intended the following to be an h1 p183 heading or an h2 p183 heading:

<h1>Contact details</h2>

Cases that are likely to be typos

When a user makes a simple typo, it is helpful if the error can be caught early, as this can save the author a lot of debugging time.
This specification therefore usually considers it an error to use element names, attribute names, and so forth, that do not match the
names defined in this specification.

Example
For example, if the author typed <capton> instead of <caption>, this would be flagged as an error and the author could correct
the typo immediately.

Errors that could interfere with new syntax in the future

In order to allow the language syntax to be extended in the future, certain otherwise harmless features are disallowed.

Example
For example, "attributes" in end tags are ignored currently, but they are invalid, in case a future change to the language makes
use of that syntax feature without conflicting with already-deployed (and valid!) content.

Some authors find it helpful to be in the practice of always quoting all attributes and always including all optional tags, preferring the
consistency derived from such custom over the minor benefits of terseness afforded by making use of the flexibility of the HTML
syntax. To aid such authors, conformance checkers can provide modes of operation wherein such conventions are enforced.

1.12.3 Restrictions on content models and on attribute values § p38

This section is non-normative.

Beyond the syntax of the language, this specification also places restrictions on how elements and attributes can be specified. These
restrictions are present for similar reasons:

Errors involving content with dubious semantics

To avoid misuse of elements with defined meanings, content models are defined that restrict how elements can be nested when
such nestings would be of dubious value.

38
 Example
For example, this specification disallows nesting a section p175 element inside a kbd p261 element, since it is highly unlikely for an
author to indicate that an entire section should be keyed in.

Errors that involve a conflict in expressed semantics

Similarly, to draw the author's attention to mistakes in the use of elements, clear contradictions in the semantics expressed are also
considered conformance errors.

Example
In the fragments below, for example, the semantics are nonsensical: a separator cannot simultaneously be a cell, nor can a
radio button be a progress bar.

<hr role="cell">

<input type=radio role=progressbar>

Example
Another example is the restrictions on the content models of the ul p215 element, which only allows li p217 element children. Lists
by definition consist just of zero or more list items, so if a ul p215 element contains something other than an li p217 element, it's
not clear what was meant.

Cases where the default styles are likely to lead to confusion

Certain elements have default styles or behaviors that make certain combinations likely to lead to confusion. Where these have
equivalent alternatives without this problem, the confusing combinations are disallowed.

Example
For example, div p229 elements are rendered as block boxes, and span p270 elements as inline boxes. Putting a block box in an
inline box is unnecessarily confusing; since either nesting just div p229 elements, or nesting just span p270 elements, or nesting
span p270 elements inside div p229 elements all serve the same purpose as nesting a div p229 element in a span p270 element, but
only the latter involves a block box in an inline box, the latter combination is disallowed.

Example
Another example would be the way interactive content p129 cannot be nested. For example, a button p518 element cannot contain
a textarea p530 element. This is because the default behavior of such nesting interactive elements would be highly confusing to
users. Instead of nesting these elements, they can be placed side by side.

Errors that indicate a likely misunderstanding of the specification

Sometimes, something is disallowed because allowing it would likely cause author confusion.

Example
For example, setting the disabled p551 attribute to the value "false" is disallowed, because despite the appearance of meaning
that the element is enabled, it in fact means that the element is disabled (what matters for implementations is the presence of
the attribute, not its value).

Errors involving limits that have been imposed merely to simplify the language
Some conformance errors simplify the language that authors need to learn.

Example
For example, the area p428 element's shape p429 attribute, despite accepting both circ p429 and circle p429 values in practice as
synonyms, disallows the use of the circ p429 value, so as to simplify tutorials and other learning aids. There would be no benefit
to allowing both, but it would cause extra confusion when teaching the language.

Errors that involve peculiarities of the parser

Certain elements are parsed in somewhat eccentric ways (typically for historical reasons), and their content model restrictions are
intended to avoid exposing the author to these issues.

Example
For example, a form p470 element isn't allowed inside phrasing content p128 , because when parsed as HTML, a form p470 element's
start tag will imply a p p205 element's end tag. Thus, the following markup results in two paragraphs p130 , not one:

39
 <p>Welcome. <form><label>Name:</label> <input></form>

It is parsed exactly like the following:

<p>Welcome. </p><form><label>Name:</label> <input></form>

Errors that would likely result in scripts failing in hard-to-debug ways

Some errors are intended to help prevent script problems that would be hard to debug.

Example
This is why, for instance, it is non-conforming to have two id p133 attributes with the same value. Duplicate IDs lead to the wrong
element being selected, with sometimes disastrous effects whose cause is hard to determine.

Errors that waste authoring time

Some constructs are disallowed because historically they have been the cause of a lot of wasted authoring time, and by
encouraging authors to avoid making them, authors can save time in future efforts.

Example
For example, a script p594 element's src p595 attribute causes the element's contents to be ignored. However, this isn't obvious,
especially if the element's contents appear to be executable script — which can lead to authors spending a lot of time trying to
debug the inline script without realizing that it is not executing. To reduce this problem, this specification makes it non-
conforming to have executable script in a script p594 element when the src p595 attribute is present. This means that authors
who are validating their documents are less likely to waste time with this kind of mistake.

Errors that involve areas that affect authors migrating between the HTML and XML syntaxes
Some authors like to write files that can be interpreted as both XML and HTML with similar results. Though this practice is
discouraged in general due to the myriad of subtle complications involved (especially when involving scripting, styling, or any kind
of automated serialization), this specification has a few restrictions intended to at least somewhat mitigate the difficulties. This
makes it easier for authors to use this as a transitionary step when migrating between the HTML and XML syntaxes.

Example
For example, there are somewhat complicated rules surrounding the lang p136 and xml:lang p136 attributes intended to keep the
two synchronized.

Example
Another example would be the restrictions on the values of xmlns attributes in the HTML serialization, which are intended to
ensure that elements in conforming documents end up in the same namespaces whether processed as HTML or XML.

Errors that involve areas reserved for future expansion

As with the restrictions on the syntax intended to allow for new syntax in future revisions of the language, some restrictions on the
content models of elements and values of attributes are intended to allow for future expansion of the HTML vocabulary.

Example
For example, limiting the values of the target p274 attribute that start with an U+005F LOW LINE character (_) to only specific
predefined values allows new predefined values to be introduced at a future time without conflicting with author-defined values.

Errors that indicate a mis-use of other specifications

Certain restrictions are intended to support the restrictions made by other specifications.

Example
For example, requiring that attributes that take media query lists use only valid media query lists reinforces the importance of
following the conformance rules of that specification.

1.13 Suggested reading § p40

This section is non-normative.

40
The following documents might be of interest to readers of this specification.

Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Fundamentals [CHARMOD] p1217
This Architectural Specification provides authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common
reference for interoperable text manipulation on the World Wide Web, building on the Universal Character Set, defined jointly by
the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. Topics addressed include use of the terms 'character', 'encoding' and 'string', a
reference processing model, choice and identification of character encodings, character escaping, and string indexing.

Unicode Security Considerations [UTR36] p1223

Because Unicode contains such a large number of characters and incorporates the varied writing systems of the world, incorrect
usage can expose programs or systems to possible security attacks. This is especially important as more and more products are
internationalized. This document describes some of the security considerations that programmers, system analysts, standards
developers, and users should take into account, and provides specific recommendations to reduce the risk of problems.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 [WCAG] p1223

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more
accessible. Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including
blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech
disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more
usable to users in general.

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 [ATAG] p1217

This specification provides guidelines for designing Web content authoring tools that are more accessible for people with
disabilities. An authoring tool that conforms to these guidelines will promote accessibility by providing an accessible user
interface to authors with disabilities as well as by enabling, supporting, and promoting the production of accessible Web content
by all authors.

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0 [UAAG] p1223

This document provides guidelines for designing user agents that lower barriers to Web accessibility for people with disabilities.
User agents include browsers and other types of software that retrieve and render Web content. A user agent that conforms to
these guidelines will promote accessibility through its own user interface and through other internal facilities, including its
ability to communicate with other technologies (especially assistive technologies). Furthermore, all users, not just users with
disabilities, should find conforming user agents to be more usable.

41
 2 Common infrastructure § p42

This specification depends on the WHATWG Infra standard. [INFRA] p1220

2.1 Terminology § p42

This specification refers to both HTML and XML attributes and IDL attributes, often in the same context. When it is not clear which is
being referred to, they are referred to as content attributes for HTML and XML attributes, and IDL attributes for those defined on
IDL interfaces. Similarly, the term "properties" is used for both JavaScript object properties and CSS properties. When these are
ambiguous they are qualified as object properties and CSS properties respectively.

Generally, when the specification states that a feature applies to the HTML syntax p1006 or the XML syntax p1125 , it also includes the other.
When a feature specifically only applies to one of the two languages, it is called out by explicitly stating that it does not apply to the
other format, as in "for HTML, ... (this does not apply to XML)".

This specification uses the term document to refer to any use of HTML, ranging from short static documents to long essays or reports
with rich multimedia, as well as to fully-fledged interactive applications. The term is used to refer both to Document p110 objects and
their descendant DOM trees, and to serialized byte streams using the HTML syntax p1006 or the XML syntax p1125 , depending on context.

In the context of the DOM structures, the terms HTML document and XML document are used as defined in the DOM specification, and
refer specifically to two different modes that Document p110 objects can find themselves in. [DOM] p1219 (Such uses are always
hyperlinked to their definition.)

In the context of byte streams, the term HTML document refers to resources labeled as text/html p1185 , and the term XML document
refers to resources labeled with an XML MIME type.

For simplicity, terms such as shown, displayed, and visible might sometimes be used when referring to the way a document is
rendered to the user. These terms are not meant to imply a visual medium; they must be considered to apply to other media in
equivalent ways.

2.1.1 Parallelism § p42

To run steps in parallel means those steps are to be run, one after another, at the same time as other logic in the standard (e.g., at
the same time as the event loop p892 ). This standard does not define the precise mechanism by which this is achieved, be it time-
sharing cooperative multitasking, fibers, threads, processes, using different hyperthreads, cores, CPUs, machines, etc. By contrast, an
operation that is to run immediately must interrupt the currently running task, run itself, and then resume the previously running
task.

To avoid race conditions between different in parallel p42 algorithms that operate on the same data, a parallel queue p42 can be used.

A parallel queue represents a queue of algorithm steps that must be run in series.

A parallel queue p42 has an algorithm queue (a queue), initially empty.

To enqueue steps to a parallel queue p42 , enqueue the algorithm steps to the parallel queue p42 's algorithm queue p42 .

To start a new parallel queue, run the following steps:

1. Let parallelQueue be a new parallel queue p42 .

2. Run the following steps in parallel p42 :

1. While true:

1. Let steps be the result of dequeueing from parallelQueue's algorithm queue p42 .

42
 2. If steps is not nothing, then run steps.

3. Assert: running steps did not throw an exception, as steps running in parallel p42 are not allowed to throw.

Note
Implementations are not expected to implement this as a continuously running loop. Algorithms in standards
are to be easy to understand and are not necessarily great for battery life or performance.

3. Return parallelQueue.

Note
Steps running in parallel p42 can themselves run other steps in in parallel p42 . E.g., inside a parallel queue p42 it can be useful to run a
series of steps in parallel with the queue.

Example

Imagine a standard defined nameList (a list), along with a method to add a name to nameList, unless nameList already contains
name, in which case it rejects.

The following solution suffers from race conditions:

1. Let p be a new promise.

2. Run the following steps in parallel p42 :

1. If nameList contains name, reject p with a TypeError and abort these steps.

2. Do some potentially lengthy work.

3. Append name to nameList.

4. Resolve p with undefined.

3. Return p.

Two invocations of the above could run simultaneously, meaning name isn't in nameList during step 2.1, but it might be added
before step 2.3 runs, meaning name ends up in nameList twice.

Parallel queues solve this. The standard would let nameListQueue be the result of starting a new parallel queue p42 , then:

1. Let p be a new promise.

2. Enqueue the following steps p42 to nameListQueue:

1. If nameList contains name, reject p with a TypeError and abort these steps.

2. Do some potentially lengthy work.

3. Append name to nameList.

4. Resolve p with undefined.

3. Return p.

The steps would now queue and the race is avoided.

2.1.2 Resources § p43

The specification uses the term supported when referring to whether a user agent has an implementation capable of decoding the
semantics of an external resource. A format or type is said to be supported if the implementation can process an external resource of
that format or type without critical aspects of the resource being ignored. Whether a specific resource is supported can depend on
what features of the resource's format are in use.

43
 Example
For example, a PNG image would be considered to be in a supported format if its pixel data could be decoded and rendered, even
if, unbeknownst to the implementation, the image also contained animation data.

Example
An MPEG-4 video file would not be considered to be in a supported format if the compression format used was not supported, even
if the implementation could determine the dimensions of the movie from the file's metadata.

What some specifications, in particular the HTTP specification, refer to as a representation is referred to in this specification as a
resource. [HTTP] p1219

A resource's critical subresources are those that the resource needs to have available to be correctly processed. Which resources
are considered critical or not is defined by the specification that defines the resource's format.

2.1.3 XML compatibility § p44

To ease migration from HTML to XML, UAs conforming to this specification will place elements in HTML in the http://www.w3.org/
1999/xhtml namespace, at least for the purposes of the DOM and CSS. The term "HTML elements" refers to any element in that
namespace, even in XML documents.

Except where otherwise stated, all elements defined or mentioned in this specification are in the HTML namespace
("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"), and all attributes defined or mentioned in this specification have no namespace.

The term element type is used to refer to the set of elements that have a given local name and namespace. For example, button p518
elements are elements with the element type button p518 , meaning they have the local name "button" and (implicitly as defined
above) the HTML namespace.

Attribute names are said to be XML-compatible if they match the Name production defined in XML and they contain no U+003A
COLON characters (:). [XML] p1224

2.1.4 DOM trees § p44

When it is stated that some element or attribute is ignored, or treated as some other value, or handled as if it was something else,
this refers only to the processing of the node after it is in the DOM. A user agent must not mutate the DOM in such situations.

A content attribute is said to change value only if its new value is different than its previous value; setting an attribute to a value it
already has does not change it.

The term empty, when used for an attribute value, Text node, or string, means that the length of the text is zero (i.e., not even
containing controls or U+0020 SPACE).

A node A is inserted into a node B when the insertion steps are invoked with A as the argument and A's new parent is B. Similarly, a
node A is removed from a node B when the removing steps are invoked with A as the removedNode argument and B as the
oldParent argument.

A node is inserted into a document when the insertion steps are invoked with it as the argument and it is now in a document tree.
Analogously, a node is removed from a document when the removing steps are invoked with it as the argument and it is now no
longer in a document tree.

A node becomes connected when the insertion steps are invoked with it as the argument and it is now connected. Analogously, a
node becomes disconnected when the removing steps are invoked with it as the argument and it is now no longer connected.

A node is browsing-context connected when it is connected and its shadow-including root has a browsing context p779 . A node
becomes browsing-context connected when the insertion steps are invoked with it as the argument and it is now browsing-context
connected p44 . A node becomes browsing-context disconnected either when the removing steps are invoked with it as the
argument and it is now no longer browsing-context connected p44 , or when its shadow-including root no longer has a browsing
context p779 .

44
2.1.5 Scripting § p45

The construction "a Foo object", where Foo is actually an interface, is sometimes used instead of the more accurate "an object
implementing the interface Foo".

An IDL attribute is said to be getting when its value is being retrieved (e.g. by author script), and is said to be setting when a new
value is assigned to it.

If a DOM object is said to be live, then the attributes and methods on that object must operate on the actual underlying data, not a
snapshot of the data.

2.1.6 Plugins § p45

The term plugin refers to a user-agent defined set of content handlers used by the user agent that can take part in the user agent's
rendering of a Document p110 object, but that neither act as child browsing contexts p781 of the Document p110 nor introduce any Node
objects to the Document p110 's DOM.

Typically such content handlers are provided by third parties, though a user agent can also designate built-in content handlers as
plugins.

A user agent must not consider the types text/plain and application/octet-stream as having a registered plugin p45 .

Example
One example of a plugin would be a PDF viewer that is instantiated in a browsing context p779 when the user navigates to a PDF file.
This would count as a plugin regardless of whether the party that implemented the PDF viewer component was the same as that
which implemented the user agent itself. However, a PDF viewer application that launches separate from the user agent (as
opposed to using the same interface) is not a plugin by this definition.

Note
This specification does not define a mechanism for interacting with plugins, as it is expected to be user-agent- and platform-
specific. Some UAs might opt to support a plugin mechanism such as the Netscape Plugin API; others might use remote content
converters or have built-in support for certain types. Indeed, this specification doesn't require user agents to support plugins at all.
[NPAPI] p1221

A plugin can be secured if it honors the semantics of the sandbox p351 attribute.

Example
For example, a secured plugin would prevent its contents from creating pop-up windows when the plugin is instantiated inside a
sandboxed iframe p347 .

⚠Warning!
Browsers should take extreme care when interacting with external content intended for plugins p45 . When third-
party software is run with the same privileges as the user agent itself, vulnerabilities in the third-party software
become as dangerous as those in the user agent.

Since different users having different sets of plugins p45 provides a fingerprinting vector that increases the chances of users being
uniquely identified, user agents are encouraged to support the exact same set of plugins p45 for each user.

p30

2.1.7 Character encodings § p45

A character encoding, or just encoding where that is not ambiguous, is a defined way to convert between byte streams and Unicode
strings, as defined in the WHATWG Encoding standard. An encoding has an encoding name and one or more encoding labels,
referred to as the encoding's name and labels in the Encoding standard. [ENCODING] p1219

A UTF-16 encoding is UTF-16BE or UTF-16LE. [ENCODING] p1219

An ASCII-compatible encoding is any encoding that is not a UTF-16 encoding p45 . [ENCODING] p1219

45
 Note
Since support for encodings that are not defined in the WHATWG Encoding standard is prohibited, UTF-16 encodings p45 are the only
encodings that this specification needs to treat as not being ASCII-compatible encodings p45 .

2.1.8 Conformance classes § p46

This specification describes the conformance criteria for user agents (relevant to implementers) and documents (relevant to authors
and authoring tool implementers).

Conforming documents are those that comply with all the conformance criteria for documents. For readability, some of these
conformance requirements are phrased as conformance requirements on authors; such requirements are implicitly requirements on
documents: by definition, all documents are assumed to have had an author. (In some cases, that author may itself be a user agent —
such user agents are subject to additional rules, as explained below.)

Example
For example, if a requirement states that "authors must not use the foobar element", it would imply that documents are not
allowed to contain elements named foobar.

Note
There is no implied relationship between document conformance requirements and implementation conformance requirements.
User agents are not free to handle non-conformant documents as they please; the processing model described in this specification
applies to implementations regardless of the conformity of the input documents.

User agents fall into several (overlapping) categories with different conformance requirements.

Web browsers and other interactive user agents

Web browsers that support the XML syntax p1125 must process elements and attributes from the HTML namespace found in XML
documents as described in this specification, so that users can interact with them, unless the semantics of those elements have
been overridden by other specifications.

Example
A conforming Web browser would, upon finding a script p594 element in an XML document, execute the script contained in that
element. However, if the element is found within a transformation expressed in XSLT (assuming the user agent also supports
XSLT), then the processor would instead treat the script p594 element as an opaque element that forms part of the transform.

Web browsers that support the HTML syntax p1006 must process documents labeled with an HTML MIME type as described in this
specification, so that users can interact with them.

User agents that support scripting must also be conforming implementations of the IDL fragments in this specification, as described
in the Web IDL specification. [WEBIDL] p1223

Note
Unless explicitly stated, specifications that override the semantics of HTML elements do not override the requirements on DOM
objects representing those elements. For example, the script p594 element in the example above would still implement the
HTMLScriptElement p595 interface.

Non-interactive presentation user agents

User agents that process HTML and XML documents purely to render non-interactive versions of them must comply to the same
conformance criteria as Web browsers, except that they are exempt from requirements regarding user interaction.

Note
Typical examples of non-interactive presentation user agents are printers (static UAs) and overhead displays (dynamic UAs). It
is expected that most static non-interactive presentation user agents will also opt to lack scripting support p47 .

Example
A non-interactive but dynamic presentation UA would still execute scripts, allowing forms to be dynamically submitted, and so
forth. However, since the concept of "focus" is irrelevant when the user cannot interact with the document, the UA would not
need to support any of the focus-related DOM APIs.

46
Visual user agents that support the suggested default rendering
User agents, whether interactive or not, may be designated (possibly as a user option) as supporting the suggested default
rendering defined by this specification.

This is not required. In particular, even user agents that do implement the suggested default rendering are encouraged to offer
settings that override this default to improve the experience for the user, e.g. changing the color contrast, using different focus
styles, or otherwise making the experience more accessible and usable to the user.

User agents that are designated as supporting the suggested default rendering must, while so designated, implement the rules the
rendering section p1129 defines as the behavior that user agents are expected to implement.

User agents with no scripting support

Implementations that do not support scripting (or which have their scripting features disabled entirely) are exempt from supporting
the events and DOM interfaces mentioned in this specification. For the parts of this specification that are defined in terms of an
events model or in terms of the DOM, such user agents must still act as if events and the DOM were supported.

Note
Scripting can form an integral part of an application. Web browsers that do not support scripting, or that have scripting
disabled, might be unable to fully convey the author's intent.

Conformance checkers
Conformance checkers must verify that a document conforms to the applicable conformance criteria described in this specification.
Automated conformance checkers are exempt from detecting errors that require interpretation of the author's intent (for example,
while a document is non-conforming if the content of a blockquote p210 element is not a quote, conformance checkers running
without the input of human judgement do not have to check that blockquote p210 elements only contain quoted material).

Conformance checkers must check that the input document conforms when parsed without a browsing context p779 (meaning that no
scripts are run, and that the parser's scripting flag p1035 is disabled), and should also check that the input document conforms when
parsed with a browsing context p779 in which scripts execute, and that the scripts never cause non-conforming states to occur other
than transiently during script execution itself. (This is only a "SHOULD" and not a "MUST" requirement because it has been proven to
be impossible. [COMPUTABLE] p1217 )

The term "HTML validator" can be used to refer to a conformance checker that itself conforms to the applicable requirements of this
specification.

Note
XML DTDs cannot express all the conformance requirements of this specification. Therefore, a validating XML processor and a
DTD cannot constitute a conformance checker. Also, since neither of the two authoring formats defined in this specification are
applications of SGML, a validating SGML system cannot constitute a conformance checker either.

To put it another way, there are three types of conformance criteria:

1. Criteria that can be expressed in a DTD.

2. Criteria that cannot be expressed by a DTD, but can still be checked by a machine.

3. Criteria that can only be checked by a human.

A conformance checker must check for the first two. A simple DTD-based validator only checks for the first class of errors and is
therefore not a conforming conformance checker according to this specification.

Data mining tools

Applications and tools that process HTML and XML documents for reasons other than to either render the documents or check them
for conformance should act in accordance with the semantics of the documents that they process.

Example
A tool that generates document outlines p194 but increases the nesting level for each paragraph and does not increase the
nesting level for each section would not be conforming.

Authoring tools and markup generators

Authoring tools and markup generators must generate conforming documents p46 . Conformance criteria that apply to authors also
apply to authoring tools, where appropriate.

47
 Authoring tools are exempt from the strict requirements of using elements only for their specified purpose, but only to the extent
that authoring tools are not yet able to determine author intent. However, authoring tools must not automatically misuse elements
or encourage their users to do so.

Example
For example, it is not conforming to use an address p190 element for arbitrary contact information; that element can only be used
for marking up contact information for its nearest article p173 or body p171 element ancestor. However, since an authoring tool is
likely unable to determine the difference, an authoring tool is exempt from that requirement. This does not mean, though, that
authoring tools can use address p190 elements for any block of italics text (for instance); it just means that the authoring tool
doesn't have to verify that when the user uses a tool for inserting contact information for an article p173 element, that the user
really is doing that and not inserting something else instead.

Note
In terms of conformance checking, an editor has to output documents that conform to the same extent that a conformance
checker will verify.

When an authoring tool is used to edit a non-conforming document, it may preserve the conformance errors in sections of the
document that were not edited during the editing session (i.e. an editing tool is allowed to round-trip erroneous content). However,
an authoring tool must not claim that the output is conformant if errors have been so preserved.

Authoring tools are expected to come in two broad varieties: tools that work from structure or semantic data, and tools that work on
a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get media-specific editing basis (WYSIWYG).

The former is the preferred mechanism for tools that author HTML, since the structure in the source information can be used to
make informed choices regarding which HTML elements and attributes are most appropriate.

However, WYSIWYG tools are legitimate. WYSIWYG tools should use elements they know are appropriate, and should not use
elements that they do not know to be appropriate. This might in certain extreme cases mean limiting the use of flow elements to
just a few elements, like div p229 , b p264 , i p263 , and span p270 and making liberal use of the style p141 attribute.

All authoring tools, whether WYSIWYG or not, should make a best effort attempt at enabling users to create well-structured,
semantically rich, media-independent content.

User agents may impose implementation-specific limits on otherwise unconstrained inputs, e.g. to prevent denial of service attacks, to
guard against running out of memory, or to work around platform-specific limitations.

For compatibility with existing content and prior specifications, this specification describes two authoring formats: one based on
XML p1125 , and one using a custom format p1006 inspired by SGML (referred to as the HTML syntax p1006 ). Implementations must support
p30
at
least one of these two formats, although supporting both is encouraged.

Some conformance requirements are phrased as requirements on elements, attributes, methods or objects. Such requirements fall into
two categories: those describing content model restrictions, and those describing implementation behavior. Those in the former
category are requirements on documents and authoring tools. Those in the second category are requirements on user agents.
Similarly, some conformance requirements are phrased as requirements on authors; such requirements are to be interpreted as
conformance requirements on the documents that authors produce. (In other words, this specification does not distinguish between
conformance criteria on authors and conformance criteria on documents.)

2.1.9 Dependencies § p48

This specification relies on several other underlying specifications.

Infra
The following terms are defined in the WHATWG Infra standard: [INFRA] p1220

• The general iteration terms while, continue, and break.

• code point and its synonym character
• surrogate
• scalar value
• noncharacter
• JavaScript string, code unit, and JavaScript string length
• scalar value string
• string length
• ASCII whitespace
• control
48
 • ASCII digit
• ASCII upper hex digit
• ASCII lower hex digit
• ASCII hex digit
• ASCII upper alpha
• ASCII lower alpha
• ASCII alpha
• ASCII alphanumeric
• ASCII lowercase
• ASCII uppercase
• ASCII case-insensitive
• strip newlines
• strip leading and trailing ASCII whitespace
• strip and collapse ASCII whitespace
• split a string on ASCII whitespace
• split a string on commas
• collect a sequence of code points and its associated position variable
• skip ASCII whitespace
• The ordered map data structure and the associated definitions for exists, getting the value of an entry, and setting
the value of an entry
• The list data structure and the associated definitions for append, replace, remove, empty, contains, size, is empty,
and iterate
• The stack data structure and the associated definitions for push and pop
• The queue data structure and the associated definitions for enqueue and dequeue
• The ordered set data structure and the associated definition for append
• The struct specification type and the associated definition for item
• The forgiving-base64 encode and forgiving-base64 decode algorithms
• HTML namespace
• MathML namespace
• SVG namespace
• XLink namespace
• XML namespace
• XMLNS namespace

Unicode and Encoding

The Unicode character set is used to represent textual data, and the WHATWG Encoding standard defines requirements around
character encodings. [UNICODE] p1223

Note
This specification introduces terminology p45 based on the terms defined in those specifications, as described earlier.

The following terms are used as defined in the WHATWG Encoding standard: [ENCODING] p1219

• Getting an encoding
• Get an output encoding
• The generic decode algorithm which takes a byte stream and an encoding and returns a character stream
• The UTF-8 decode algorithm which takes a byte stream and returns a character stream, additionally stripping one
leading UTF-8 Byte Order Mark (BOM), if any
• The UTF-8 decode without BOM algorithm which is identical to UTF-8 decode except that it does not strip one leading
UTF-8 Byte Order Mark (BOM)
• The encode algorithm which takes a character stream and an encoding and returns a byte stream
• The UTF-8 encode algorithm which takes a character stream and returns a byte stream

XML and related specifications

Implementations that support the XML syntax p1125 for HTML must support some version of XML, as well as its corresponding
namespaces specification, because that syntax uses an XML serialization with namespaces. [XML] p1224 [XMLNS] p1224

Data mining tools and other user agents that perform operations on content without running scripts, evaluating CSS or XPath
expressions, or otherwise exposing the resulting DOM to arbitrary content, may "support namespaces" by just asserting that their
DOM node analogues are in certain namespaces, without actually exposing the namespace strings.

Note
In the HTML syntax p1006 , namespace prefixes and namespace declarations do not have the same effect as in XML. For instance,
the colon has no special meaning in HTML element names.

The attribute with the tag name xml:space in the XML namespace is defined by the XML specification. [XML] p1224

The Name production is defined in the XML specification. [XML] p1224

This specification also references the <?xml-stylesheet?> processing instruction, defined in the Associating Style Sheets with XML
documents specification. [XMLSSPI] p1224

49
 This specification also non-normatively mentions the XSLTProcessor interface and its transformToFragment() and
transformToDocument() methods. [XSLTP] p1224

URLs
The following terms are defined in the WHATWG URL standard: [URL] p1223

• host
• public suffix
• domain
• IPv4 address
• IPv6 address
• URL
• Origin of URLs
• Absolute URL
• Relative URL
• The URL parser and basic URL parser as well as these parser states:
◦ scheme start state
◦ host state
◦ hostname state
◦ port state
◦ path start state
◦ query state
◦ fragment state
• URL record, as well as its individual components:
◦ scheme
◦ username
◦ password
◦ host
◦ port
◦ path
◦ query
◦ fragment
◦ cannot-be-a-base-URL flag
◦ object
• valid URL string
• The cannot have a username/password/port concept
• The URL serializer
• The host parser
• The host serializer
• Host equals
• URL equals
• serialize an integer
• Default encode set
• UTF-8 percent encode
• String percent decode
• set the username
• set the password
• The application/x-www-form-urlencoded format
• The application/x-www-form-urlencoded serializer

A number of schemes and protocols are referenced by this specification also:

• The about: scheme [ABOUT] p1217

• The blob: scheme [FILEAPI] p1219
• The data: scheme [RFC2397] p1222
• The http: scheme [HTTP] p1219
• The https: scheme [HTTP] p1219
• The mailto: scheme [MAILTO] p1220
• The sms: scheme [SMS] p1222
• The urn: scheme [URN] p1223

Media fragment syntax is defined in the Media Fragments URI specification. [MEDIAFRAG] p1220

HTTP and related specifications

The following terms are defined in the HTTP specifications: [HTTP] p1219

• `Accept` header
• `Accept-Language` header
• `Cache-Control` header
• `Content-Disposition` header
• `Content-Language` header
• `Last-Modified` header
• `Referer` header

The following terms are defined in the Cookie specification: [COOKIES] p1217

• cookie-string
• receives a set-cookie-string
50
 • `Cookie` header

The following term is defined in the Web Linking specification: [WEBLINK] p1223

• `Link` header

The following terms are defined in the WHATWG MIME Sniffing standard: [MIMESNIFF] p1220

• MIME type
• valid MIME type string
• valid MIME type string with no parameters
• HTML MIME type
• JavaScript MIME type and JavaScript MIME type essence match
• JSON MIME type
• XML MIME type

Fetch
The following terms are defined in the WHATWG Fetch standard: [FETCH] p1219

• about:blank
• An HTTP(S) scheme
• A network scheme
• A fetch scheme
• HTTPS state value
• CORS protocol
• default `User-Agent` value
• extract a MIME type
• fetch
• HTTP-redirect fetch
• ok status
• navigation request
• network error
• `Origin` header
• process response
• set
• terminate
• the RequestCredentials enumeration
• the RequestDestination enumeration
• the fetch() method
• response and its associated:
◦ type
◦ url
◦ url list
◦ status
◦ header list
◦ body
◦ internal response
◦ CSP list
◦ HTTPS state
◦ location URL
• request and its associated:
◦ url
◦ method
◦ header list
◦ body
◦ client
◦ reserved client
◦ target client id
◦ initiator
◦ destination
◦ potential destination
◦ translating a potential destination
◦ script-like destinations
◦ priority
◦ origin
◦ referrer
◦ synchronous flag
◦ mode
◦ credentials mode
◦ use-URL-credentials flag
◦ unsafe-request flag
◦ cache mode
◦ redirect mode
◦ referrer policy
◦ cryptographic nonce metadata
◦ integrity metadata
◦ parser metadata
◦ reload-navigation flag
◦ history-navigation flag

The following terms are defined in Referrer Policy: [REFERRERPOLICY] p1221

51
 • referrer policy
• The `Referrer-Policy` HTTP header
• The parse a referrer policy from a `Referrer-Policy` header algorithm
• The "no-referrer", "no-referrer-when-downgrade", "no-referrer-when-downgrade", and "unsafe-url" referrer
policies

The following terms are defined in Mixed Content: [MIX] p1220

• a priori authenticated URL

Web IDL
The IDL fragments in this specification must be interpreted as required for conforming IDL fragments, as described in the Web IDL
specification. [WEBIDL] p1223

The following terms are defined in the Web IDL specification:

• extended attribute
• named constructor
• array index property name
• supported property indices
• determine the value of an indexed property
• set the value of an existing indexed property
• set the value of a new indexed property
• support named properties
• supported property names
• determine the value of a named property
• set the value of an existing named property
• set the value of a new named property
• delete an existing named property
• perform a security check
• platform object
• legacy platform object
• primary interface
• interface object
• interface prototype object
• global environment associated with a platform object
• callback context
• frozen array and creating a frozen array
• callback this value
• converting between Web IDL types and JS types
• invoking and constructing callback functions
• converting to a sequence of Unicode scalar values

The Web IDL specification also defines the following types that are used in Web IDL fragments in this specification:

• ArrayBuffer
• ArrayBufferView
• boolean
• DOMString
• double
• enumeration
• Error
• Function
• long
• object
• Uint8ClampedArray
• unrestricted double
• unsigned long
• USVString

The term throw in this specification is used as defined in the Web IDL specification. The DOMException type and the following
exception names are defined by Web IDL and used by this specification:

• "IndexSizeError"
• "HierarchyRequestError"
• "InvalidCharacterError"
• "NotFoundError"
• "NotSupportedError"
• "InvalidStateError"
• "SyntaxError"
• "InvalidAccessError"
• "SecurityError"
• "NetworkError"
• "AbortError"
• "QuotaExceededError"
• "DataCloneError"
• "EncodingError"
• "NotAllowedError"

When this specification requires a user agent to create a Date object representing a particular time (which could be the special
52
 value Not-a-Number), the milliseconds component of that time, if any, must be truncated to an integer, and the time value of the
newly created Date object must represent the resulting truncated time.

Example
For instance, given the time 23045 millionths of a second after 01:00 UTC on January 1st 2000, i.e. the time
2000-01-01T00:00:00.023045Z, then the Date object created representing that time would represent the same time as that
created representing the time 2000-01-01T00:00:00.023Z, 45 millionths earlier. If the given time is NaN, then the result is a
Date object that represents a time value NaN (indicating that the object does not represent a specific instant of time).

JavaScript
Some parts of the language described by this specification only support JavaScript as the underlying scripting language.
[JAVASCRIPT] p1220

Users agents that support JavaScript must also implement the ECMAScript Internationalization API Specification. [JSINTL] p1220

Note
The term "JavaScript" is used to refer to ECMA-262, rather than the official term ECMAScript, since the term JavaScript is more
widely known. Similarly, the MIME type used to refer to JavaScript in this specification is text/javascript, since that is the
most commonly used type, despite it being an officially obsoleted type p26 according to RFC 4329. [RFC4329] p1222

The following terms are defined in the JavaScript specification and used in this specification:

• active function object

• agent and agent cluster
• automatic semicolon insertion
• The current Realm Record
• early error
• Directive Prologue
• invariants of the essential internal methods
• JavaScript execution context
• JavaScript execution context stack
• JavaScript realm
• running JavaScript execution context
• Use Strict Directive
• Well-Known Symbols, including @@hasInstance, @@isConcatSpreadable, @@toPrimitive, and @@toStringTag
• Well-Known Intrinsic Objects, including %ArrayBuffer%, %ArrayPrototype%, and %ObjProto_valueOf%
• The FunctionBody production
• The Module production
• The Pattern production
• The Script production
• The Type notation
• The Completion Record specification type
• The List and Record specification types
• The Property Descriptor specification type
• The Script Record specification type
• The Source Text Module Record specification type and its Evaluate and Instantiate methods
• The ArrayCreate abstract operation
• The Call abstract operation
• The Construct abstract operation
• The CopyDataBlockBytes abstract operation
• The CreateByteDataBlock abstract operation
• The CreateDataProperty abstract operation
• The DetachArrayBuffer abstract operation
• The EnqueueJob abstract operation
• The EnumerableOwnProperties abstract operation
• The FunctionCreate abstract operation
• The Get abstract operation
• The GetActiveScriptOrModule abstract operation
• The GetFunctionRealm abstract operation
• The HasOwnProperty abstract operation
• The HostEnsureCanCompileStrings abstract operation
• The HostPromiseRejectionTracker abstract operation
• The HostResolveImportedModule abstract operation
• The InitializeHostDefinedRealm abstract operation
• The IsAccessorDescriptor abstract operation
• The IsCallable abstract operation
• The IsConstructor abstract operation
• The IsDataDescriptor abstract operation
• The IsDetachedBuffer abstract operation
• The IsSharedArrayBuffer abstract operation
• The NewObjectEnvironment abstract operation
• The NormalCompletion abstract operation
• The OrdinaryGetPrototypeOf abstract operation
• The OrdinarySetPrototypeOf abstract operation
• The OrdinaryIsExtensible abstract operation
• The OrdinaryPreventExtensions abstract operation
53
 • The OrdinaryGetOwnProperty abstract operation
• The OrdinaryDefineOwnProperty abstract operation
• The OrdinaryGet abstract operation
• The OrdinarySet abstract operation
• The OrdinaryDelete abstract operation
• The OrdinaryOwnPropertyKeys abstract operation
• The ParseModule abstract operation
• The ParseScript abstract operation
• The RunJobs abstract operation
• The SameValue abstract operation
• The ScriptEvaluation abstract operation
• The SetImmutablePrototype abstract operation
• The ToBoolean abstract operation
• The ToString abstract operation
• The ToUint32 abstract operation
• The TypedArrayCreate abstract operation
• The Abstract Equality Comparison algorithm
• The Strict Equality Comparison algorithm
• The Date class
• The SharedArrayBuffer class
• The TypeError class
• The RangeError class
• The eval() function
• The [[IsHTMLDDA]] internal slot
• The typeof operator
• The delete operator
• The TypedArray Constructors table

User agents that support JavaScript must also implement the import() proposal. The following terms are defined there, and used in
this specification: [JSIMPORT] p1220

• import()
• The HostImportModuleDynamically abstract operation
• The FinishDynamicImport abstract operation

User agents that support JavaScript must also implement the import.meta proposal. The following term is defined there, and used in
this specification: [JSIMPORTMETA] p1220

• The HostGetImportMetaProperties abstract operation

User agents that support JavaScript must also implement the BigInt proposal. [JSBIGINT] p1220

DOM
The Document Object Model (DOM) is a representation — a model — of a document and its content. The DOM is not just an API; the
conformance criteria of HTML implementations are defined, in this specification, in terms of operations on the DOM. [DOM] p1219

Implementations must support DOM and the events defined in UI Events, because this specification is defined in terms of the DOM,
and some of the features are defined as extensions to the DOM interfaces. [DOM] p1219 [UIEVENTS] p1223

In particular, the following features are defined in the WHATWG DOM standard: [DOM] p1219

• Attr interface
• Comment interface
• DOMImplementation interface
• Document interface
• DocumentFragment interface
• DocumentType interface
• ChildNode interface
• Element interface
• Node interface
• NodeList interface
• ProcessingInstruction interface
• ShadowRoot interface
• Text interface
• node document concept
• host concept
• shadow root concept
• HTMLCollection interface
• HTMLCollection.length attribute
• HTMLCollection.item() method
• HTMLCollection.namedItem() method
• The terms collection and represented by the collection
• DOMTokenList interface
• DOMTokenList.value attribute
• createDocument() method
• createHTMLDocument() method
• createElement() method
• createElementNS() method
• getElementById() method
54
 • getElementsByClassName() method
• appendChild() method
• cloneNode() method
• importNode() method
• preventDefault() method
• id attribute
• textContent attribute
• The tree and shadow tree concepts
• The tree order and shadow-including tree order concepts
• The child concept
• The root and shadow-including root concepts
• The inclusive ancestor, shadow-including descendant, and shadow-including inclusive descendant concepts
• The first child and next sibling concepts
• The document element concept
• The in a document tree, in a document (legacy), and connected concepts
• The slot concept, and its name and assigned nodes
• The find flattened slotables algorithm
• The assign a slot algorithm
• The pre-insert, insert, append, replace, replace all, remove, and adopt algorithms for nodes
• The change, append, remove, replace, and set value algorithms for attributes
• The insertion steps, removing steps, adopting steps, and child text content change steps hooks
• The attribute list concept
• The data of a text node
• The child text content of a node
• Event interface
• EventTarget interface
• The activation behavior hook
• The legacy-pre-activation behavior hook
• The legacy-canceled-activation behavior hook
• The create an event algorithm
• The fire an event algorithm
• The canceled flag
• The dispatch algorithm
• EventInit dictionary type
• type attribute
• target attribute
• currentTarget attribute
• bubbles attribute
• cancelable attribute
• composed flag
• isTrusted attribute
• initEvent() method
• add an event listener
• addEventListener() method
• remove all event listeners
• EventListener callback interface
• The type of an event
• An event listener and its type and callback
• The encoding (herein the character encoding) and content type of a Document p110
• The distinction between XML documents and HTML documents
• The terms quirks mode, limited-quirks mode, and no-quirks mode
• The algorithm to clone a Node, and the concept of cloning steps used by that algorithm
• The concept of base URL change steps and the definition of what happens when an element is affected by a base
URL change
• The concept of an element's unique identifier (ID)
• The concept of an element's classes
• The term supported tokens
• The concept of a DOM range, and the terms start, end, and boundary point as applied to ranges.
• The create an element algorithm
• The element interface concept
• The concepts of custom element state, and of defined and custom elements
• An element's custom element definition
• An element's is value
• MutationObserver interface and mutation observers in general

The following features are defined in the UI Events specification: [UIEVENTS] p1223

• The MouseEvent interface

• The MouseEvent interface's relatedTarget attribute
• MouseEventInit dictionary type
• The FocusEvent interface
• The FocusEvent interface's relatedTarget attribute
• The UIEvent interface
• The UIEvent interface's view attribute
• auxclick event
• click event
• dblclick event
• mousedown event
• mouseenter event
• mouseleave event
• mousemove event
• mouseout event
• mouseover event
55
 • mouseup event
• wheel event
• keydown event
• keypress event
• keyup event

The following features are defined in the Touch Events specification: [TOUCH] p1223

• Touch interface
• Touch point concept
• touchend event

The following features are defined in the Pointer Events specification: [POINTEREVENTS] p1221

• pointerup event

This specification sometimes uses the term name to refer to the event's type; as in, "an event named click" or "if the event name
is keypress". The terms "name" and "type" for events are synonymous.

The following features are defined in the DOM Parsing and Serialization specification: [DOMPARSING] p1219

• DOMParser
• innerHTML
• outerHTML

The Selection interface is defined in the Selection API specification. [SELECTION] p1222

Note
User agents are encouraged to implement the features described in the execCommand specification. [EXECCOMMAND] p1219

The following parts of the WHATWG Fullscreen API standard are referenced from this specification, in part to define the rendering of
dialog p591 elements, and also to define how the Fullscreen API interacts with HTML: [FULLSCREEN] p1219

• top layer (an ordered set) and its add operation

• requestFullscreen()
• run the fullscreen steps

The High Resolution Time specification provides the current high resolution time and the DOMHighResTimeStamp typedef.
[HRT] p1219

File API
This specification uses the following features defined in the File API specification: [FILEAPI] p1219

• The Blob interface and its type attribute

• The File interface and its name and lastModified attributes
• The FileList interface
• The concept of a Blob's snapshot state
• The concept of read errors
• Blob URL Store

Indexed Database API

This specification uses cleanup Indexed Database transactions defined by the Indexed Database API specification.
[INDEXEDDB] p1220

Media Source Extensions

The following terms are defined in the Media Source Extensions specification: [MEDIASOURCE] p1220

• MediaSource interface
• detaching from a media element

Media Capture and Streams

The following terms are defined in the Media Capture and Streams specification: [MEDIASTREAM] p1220

• MediaStream interface
• getUserMedia() method

XMLHttpRequest
The following features and terms are defined in the XMLHttpRequest specification: [XHR] p1224

• XMLHttpRequest interface
• XMLHttpRequest.responseXML attribute
• ProgressEvent interface
• ProgressEvent.lengthComputable attribute
56
 • ProgressEvent.loaded attribute
• ProgressEvent.total attribute
• Fire a progress event named e
• The concept of entry
• create an entry

Battery Status
The following features are defined in the Battery Status API specification: [BATTERY] p1217

• getBattery() method

Media Queries
Implementations must support Media Queries. The <media-condition> feature is defined therein. [MQ] p1221

CSS modules
While support for CSS as a whole is not required of implementations of this specification (though it is encouraged, at least for Web
browsers), some features are defined in terms of specific CSS requirements.

When this specification requires that something be parsed according to a particular CSS grammar, the relevant algorithm in
the CSS Syntax specification must be followed, including error handling rules. [CSSSYNTAX] p1218

Example
For example, user agents are required to close all open constructs upon finding the end of a style sheet unexpectedly. Thus,
when parsing the string "rgb(0,0,0" (with a missing close-parenthesis) for a color value, the close parenthesis is implied by this
error handling rule, and a value is obtained (the color 'black'). However, the similar construct "rgb(0,0," (with both a missing
parenthesis and a missing "blue" value) cannot be parsed, as closing the open construct does not result in a viable value.

To parse a CSS <color> value, given a string input with an optional element element, run these steps:

1. Let color be the result of parsing input as a CSS <color>. [CSSCOLOR] p1218

2. If color is failure, then return failure.

3. If color is 'currentcolor', then:

1. If element is not given, then set color to opaque black.

2. Otherwise, set color to the computed value of the 'color' property of element.

4. Return color.

The following terms and features are defined in the CSS specification: [CSS] p1217

• viewport
• line box
• out-of-flow
• in-flow
• replaced element
• intrinsic dimensions
• content area
• content box
• border box
• margin box
• border edge
• margin edge
• collapsing margins
• containing block
• inline box
• block box
• The 'margin-top', 'margin-bottom', 'margin-left', and 'margin-right' properties
• The 'padding-top', 'padding-bottom', 'padding-left', and 'padding-right' properties
• The 'top', 'bottom', 'left', and 'right' properties
• The 'float' property
• The 'clear' property
• The 'width' property
• The 'height' property
• The 'line-height' property
• The 'vertical-align' property
• The 'content' property
• The 'inline-block' value of the 'display' property
• The 'visibility' property

The CSS specification also defines the following border properties: [CSS] p1217

57
 Border properties
Top Bottom Left Right
Width 'border-top-width' 'border-bottom-width' 'border-left-width' 'border-right-width'
Style 'border-top-style' 'border-bottom-style' 'border-left-style' 'border-right-style'
Color 'border-top-color' 'border-bottom-color' 'border-left-color' 'border-right-color'

The terms intrinsic width and intrinsic height refer to the width dimension and the height dimension, respectively, of intrinsic
dimensions.

The basic version of the 'display' property is defined in the CSS specification, and the property is extended by other CSS modules.
[CSS] p1217 [CSSRUBY] p1218 [CSSTABLE] p1218

The following terms and features are defined in the CSS Logical Properties specification: [CSSLOGICAL] p1218

• The 'margin-block-start', 'margin-block-end', 'margin-inline-start', and 'margin-inline-end' properties

• The 'padding-block-start', 'padding-block-end', 'padding-inline-start', and 'padding-inline-end' properties

The following terms and features are defined in the CSS Color specification: [CSSCOLOR] p1218

• named color
• <color>
• The 'color' property
• The 'currentcolor' value
• opaque black
• transparent black

The term paint source is used as defined in the CSS Image Values and Replaced Content specification to define the interaction of
certain HTML elements with the CSS 'element()' function. [CSSIMAGES] p1218

The term default object size and the 'object-fit' property are also defined in the CSS Image Values and Replaced Content
specification. [CSSIMAGES] p1218

The following features are defined in the CSS Backgrounds and Borders specification: [CSSBG] p1218

• The 'background-color' property

• The 'background-image' property

The term block-level is defined in the CSS Display specification. [CSSDISPLAY] p1218

The following features are defined in the CSS Fonts specification: [CSSFONTS] p1218

• The 'font-family' property

• The 'font-weight' property
• The 'font-size' property
• The 'font' property

The 'list-style-type' property is defined in the CSS Lists and Counters specification. [CSSLISTS] p1218

The 'overflow' property and its 'hidden' value are defined in the CSS Overflow specification. [CSSOVERFLOW] p1218

The following features are defined in the CSS Positioned Layout specification: [CSSPOSITION] p1218

• The 'position' property and its 'static' value

The 'ruby-base' value of the 'display' property is defined in the CSS Ruby Layout specification. [CSSRUBY] p1218

The following features are defined in the CSS Table specification: [CSSTABLE] p1218

• The 'border-spacing' property

• The 'border-collapse' property
• The 'table-cell', 'table-row', 'table-caption', and 'table' values of the 'display' property

The following features are defined in the CSS Text specification: [CSSTEXT] p1218

• The 'text-transform' property

• The 'white-space' property
• The 'text-align' property
• The 'letter-spacing' property

The following features are defined in the CSS Writing Modes specification: [CSSWM] p1219

• The 'direction' property

58
 • The 'unicode-bidi' property
• The block flow direction, block size, inline size, block-start, block-end, inline-start, inline-end, line-left, and
line-right concepts

The following features are defined in the CSS Basic User Interface specification: [CSSUI] p1218

• The 'outline' property

• The 'cursor' property
• The 'appearance' property

The algorithm to update animations and send events is defined in the Web Animations specification. [WEBANIMATIONS] p1223 .

Implementations that support scripting must support the CSS Object Model. The following features and terms are defined in the
CSSOM specifications: [CSSOM] p1218 [CSSOMVIEW] p1218

• Screen interface
• LinkStyle interface
• CSSStyleDeclaration interface
• cssText attribute of CSSStyleDeclaration
• StyleSheet interface
• create a CSS style sheet
• remove a CSS style sheet
• associated CSS style sheet
• CSS style sheets and their properties:
◦ type
◦ location
◦ parent CSS style sheet
◦ owner node
◦ owner CSS rule
◦ media
◦ title
◦ alternate flag
◦ disabled flag
◦ CSS rules
◦ origin-clean flag
• CSS style sheet set
• CSS style sheet set name
• preferred CSS style sheet set name
• change the preferred CSS style sheet set name
• Serializing a CSS value
• run the resize steps
• run the scroll steps
• evaluate media queries and report changes
• Scroll an element into view
• Scroll to the beginning of the document
• The resize event
• The scroll event
• set up browsing context features

The following features and terms are defined in the CSS Syntax specifications: [CSSSYNTAX] p1218

• conformant style sheet

• parse a comma-separated list of component values
• component value
• environment encoding
• <whitespace-token>

The following terms are defined in the Selectors specification: [SELECTORS] p1222

• type selector
• attribute selector
• pseudo-class

The following features are defined in the CSS Values and Units specification: [CSSVALUES] p1218

• <length>
• The 'em' unit
• The 'ex' unit
• The 'vw' unit
• The 'in' unit
• The 'px' unit
• The 'attr()' function
• The math functions

The term style attribute is defined in the CSS Style Attributes specification. [CSSATTR] p1218

The following terms are defined in the CSS Cascading and Inheritance specification: [CSSCASCADE] p1218

• specified value
59
 • computed value
• used value

The CanvasRenderingContext2D p619 object's use of fonts depends on the features described in the CSS Fonts and Font Loading
specifications, including in particular FontFace objects and the font source concept. [CSSFONTS] p1218 [CSSFONTLOAD] p1218

The following interfaces and terms are defined in the Geometry Interfaces Module specification: [GEOMETRY] p1219

• DOMMatrix interface, and associated m11 element, m12 element, m21 element, m22 element, m41 element, and
m42 element
• DOMMatrix2DInit and DOMMatrixInit dictionaries
• The create a DOMMatrix from a dictionary and create a DOMMatrix from a 2D dictionary algorithms for
DOMMatrix2DInit or DOMMatrixInit

Intersection Observer
The following term is defined in the Intersection Observer specification: [INTERSECTIONOBSERVER] p1220

• run the update intersection observations steps

WebGL
The following interface is defined in the WebGL specification: [WEBGL] p1223

• WebGLRenderingContext interface

WebVTT
Implementations may support WebVTT as a text track format for subtitles, captions, metadata, etc., for media resources.
[WEBVTT] p1224

The following terms, used in this specification, are defined in the WebVTT specification:

• WebVTT file
• WebVTT file using cue text
• WebVTT file using only nested cues
• WebVTT parser
• The rules for updating the display of WebVTT text tracks
• The WebVTT text track cue writing direction
• VTTCue interface

The WebSocket protocol

The following terms are defined in the WHATWG Fetch standard: [FETCH] p1219

• establish a WebSocket connection

The following terms are defined in the WebSocket protocol specification: [WSP] p1224

• the WebSocket connection is established

• extensions in use
• subprotocol in use
• a WebSocket message has been received
• send a WebSocket Message
• fail the WebSocket connection
• close the WebSocket connection
• start the WebSocket closing handshake
• the WebSocket closing handshake is started
• the WebSocket connection is closed (possibly cleanly)
• the WebSocket connection close code
• the WebSocket connection close reason
• Sec-WebSocket-Protocol field

ARIA
The role attribute is defined in the ARIA specification, as are the following roles: [ARIA] p1217

• button
• presentation

In addition, the following aria-* content attributes are defined in the ARIA specification: [ARIA] p1217

• aria-describedby
• aria-disabled
• aria-label

Finally, the following terms are defined in the ARIA specification: [ARIA] p1217

• accessible name

60
Content Security Policy
The following terms are defined in Content Security Policy: [CSP] p1217

• Content Security Policy

• Content Security Policy directive
• CSP list
• The Content Security Policy syntax
• enforce the policy
• The parse a serialized Content Security Policy algorithm
• The Initialize a global object's CSP list algorithm
• The Initialize a Document's CSP list algorithm
• The Should element's inline behavior be blocked by Content Security Policy? algorithm
• The Should navigation request of type from source in target be blocked by Content Security Policy? algorithm
• The Should navigation response to navigation request of type from source in target be blocked by Content
Security Policy? algorithm
• The report-uri directive
• The EnsureCSPDoesNotBlockStringCompilation abstract operation
• The Is base allowed for Document? algorithm
• The frame-ancestors directive
• The sandbox directive
• The Should element be blocked a priori by Content Security Policy? algorithm
• The contains a header-delivered Content Security Policy property.

Service Workers
The following terms are defined in Service Workers: [SW] p1223

• active worker
• client message queue
• control
• handle fetch
• match service worker registration
• service worker
• service worker client
• ServiceWorker interface
• ServiceWorkerContainer interface
• ServiceWorkerGlobalScope interface

Secure Contexts
The following algorithm is defined in Secure Contexts: [SECURE-CONTEXTS] p1222

• Is environment settings object a secure context?

Feature Policy
The following terms are defined in Feature Policy: [FEATUREPOLICY] p1219

• feature policy
• container policy
• serialized feature policy
• The Initialize document’s feature policy algorithm
• The Initialize document’s feature policy from response algorithm
• The Is feature enabled by policy for origin algorithm
• The Process feature policy attributes algorithm

Payment Request API

The following feature is defined in the Payment Request API specification: [PAYMENTREQUEST] p1221

• PaymentRequest interface

MathML
While support for MathML as a whole is not required by this specification (though it is encouraged, at least for Web browsers),
certain features depend upon small parts of MathML being implemented. [MATHML] p1220

The following features are defined in the MathML specification:

• MathML annotation-xml element

• MathML math element
• MathML merror element
• MathML mi element
• MathML mn element
• MathML mo element
• MathML ms element
• MathML mtext element

SVG
While support for SVG as a whole is not required by this specification (though it is encouraged, at least for Web browsers), certain

61
 features depend upon parts of SVG being implemented.

User agents that implement SVG must implement the SVG 2 specification, and not any earlier revisions.

The following features are defined in the SVG 2 specification: [SVG] p1223

• SVGElement interface
• SVGImageElement interface
• SVGScriptElement interface
• SVGSVGElement interface
• SVG desc element
• SVG foreignObject element
• SVG image element
• SVG script element
• SVG svg element
• SVG title element
• SVG use element

Filter Effects
The following feature is defined in the Filter Effects specification: [FILTERS] p1219

• <filter-function-list>

Worklets
The following feature is defined in the Worklets specification: [WORKLETS] p1224

• WorkletGlobalScope

Cooperative Scheduling of Background Tasks

The following feature is defined in the Cooperative Scheduling of Background Tasks specification: [REQUESTIDLECALLBACK] p1221

• requestIdleCallback()

This specification does not require support of any particular network protocol, style sheet language, scripting language, or any of the
DOM specifications beyond those required in the list above. However, the language described by this specification is biased towards
CSS as the styling language, JavaScript as the scripting language, and HTTP as the network protocol, and several features assume that
those languages and protocols are in use.

A user agent that implements the HTTP protocol must implement HTTP State Management Mechanism (Cookies) as well. [HTTP] p1219
[COOKIES] p1217

Note
This specification might have certain additional requirements on character encodings, image formats, audio formats, and video
formats in the respective sections.

2.1.10 Extensibility § p62

Vendor-specific proprietary user agent extensions to this specification are strongly discouraged. Documents must not use such
extensions, as doing so reduces interoperability and fragments the user base, allowing only users of specific user agents to access the
content in question.

All extensions must be defined so that the use of extensions neither contradicts nor causes the non-conformance of functionality
defined in the specification.

Example

For example, while strongly discouraged from doing so, an implementation could add a new IDL attribute "typeTime" to a control
that returned the time it took the user to select the current value of a control (say). On the other hand, defining a new control that
appears in a form's elements p472 array would be in violation of the above requirement, as it would violate the definition of
elements p472 given in this specification.

When vendor-neutral extensions to this specification are needed, either this specification can be updated accordingly, or an extension
62
specification can be written that overrides the requirements in this specification. When someone applying this specification to their
activities decides that they will recognize the requirements of such an extension specification, it becomes an applicable
specification for the purposes of conformance requirements in this specification.

Note
Someone could write a specification that defines any arbitrary byte stream as conforming, and then claim that their random junk is
conforming. However, that does not mean that their random junk actually is conforming for everyone's purposes: if someone else
decides that that specification does not apply to their work, then they can quite legitimately say that the aforementioned random
junk is just that, junk, and not conforming at all. As far as conformance goes, what matters in a particular community is what that
community agrees is applicable.

User agents must treat elements and attributes that they do not understand as semantically neutral; leaving them in the DOM (for
DOM processors), and styling them according to CSS (for CSS processors), but not inferring any meaning from them.

When support for a feature is disabled (e.g. as an emergency measure to mitigate a security problem, or to aid in development, or for
performance reasons), user agents must act as if they had no support for the feature whatsoever, and as if the feature was not
mentioned in this specification. For example, if a particular feature is accessed via an attribute in a Web IDL interface, the attribute
itself would be omitted from the objects that implement that interface — leaving the attribute on the object but making it return null or
throw an exception is insufficient.

2.1.11 Interactions with XPath and XSLT § p63 ⋰ Spec bug

Implementations of XPath 1.0 that operate on HTML documents parsed or created in the manners described in this specification (e.g.
as part of the document.evaluate() API) must act as if the following edit was applied to the XPath 1.0 specification.

First, remove this paragraph:

A QName in the node test is expanded into an expanded-name using the namespace declarations from the expression context.
This is the same way expansion is done for element type names in start and end-tags except that the default namespace declared
with xmlns is not used: if the QName does not have a prefix, then the namespace URI is null (this is the same way attribute names
are expanded). It is an error if the QName has a prefix for which there is no namespace declaration in the expression context.

Then, insert in its place the following:

A QName in the node test is expanded into an expanded-name using the namespace declarations from the expression context. If
the QName has a prefix, then there must be a namespace declaration for this prefix in the expression context, and the
corresponding namespace URI is the one that is associated with this prefix. It is an error if the QName has a prefix for which there
is no namespace declaration in the expression context.

If the QName has no prefix and the principal node type of the axis is element, then the default element namespace is used.
Otherwise if the QName has no prefix, the namespace URI is null. The default element namespace is a member of the context for
the XPath expression. The value of the default element namespace when executing an XPath expression through the DOM3 XPath
API is determined in the following way:

1. If the context node is from an HTML DOM, the default element namespace is "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml".

2. Otherwise, the default element namespace URI is null.

Note
This is equivalent to adding the default element namespace feature of XPath 2.0 to XPath 1.0, and using the HTML namespace
as the default element namespace for HTML documents. It is motivated by the desire to have implementations be compatible
with legacy HTML content while still supporting the changes that this specification introduces to HTML regarding the
namespace used for HTML elements, and by the desire to use XPath 1.0 rather than XPath 2.0.

Note
This change is a willful violation p26 of the XPath 1.0 specification, motivated by desire to have implementations be compatible with
legacy content while still supporting the changes that this specification introduces to HTML regarding which namespace is used for
HTML elements. [XPATH10] p1224

63
 XSLT 1.0 processors outputting to a DOM when the output method is "html" (either explicitly or via the defaulting rule in XSLT 1.0) are
affected as follows:

If the transformation program outputs an element in no namespace, the processor must, prior to constructing the corresponding DOM
element node, change the namespace of the element to the HTML namespace, ASCII-lowercase the element's local name, and ASCII-
lowercase the names of any non-namespaced attributes on the element.

Note
This requirement is a willful violation p26 of the XSLT 1.0 specification, required because this specification changes the namespaces
and case-sensitivity rules of HTML in a manner that would otherwise be incompatible with DOM-based XSLT transformations.
(Processors that serialize the output are unaffected.) [XSLT10] p1224

This specification does not specify precisely how XSLT processing interacts with the HTML parser p1018 infrastructure (for example,
whether an XSLT processor acts as if it puts any elements into a stack of open elements p1032 ). However, XSLT processors must stop
parsing p1102 if they successfully complete, and must set the current document readiness p113 first to "interactive" and then to
"complete" if they are aborted.

This specification does not specify how XSLT interacts with the navigation p824 algorithm, how it fits in with the event loop p892 , nor how
error pages are to be handled (e.g. whether XSLT errors are to replace an incremental XSLT output, or are rendered inline, etc).

Note
There are also additional non-normative comments regarding the interaction of XSLT and HTML in the script element section p607 ,
and of XSLT, XPath, and HTML in the template element section p612 .

2.2 Case-sensitivity and string comparison § p64

Comparing two strings in a case-sensitive manner means comparing them exactly, code point for code point.

Except where otherwise stated, string comparisons must be performed in a case-sensitive p64 manner.

A string pattern is a prefix match for a string s when pattern is not longer than s and truncating s to pattern's length leaves the two
strings as matches of each other.

2.3 Common microsyntaxes § p64

There are various places in HTML that accept particular data types, such as dates or numbers. This section describes what the
conformance criteria for content in those formats is, and how to parse them.

Note
Implementors are strongly urged to carefully examine any third-party libraries they might consider using to implement the parsing
of syntaxes described below. For example, date libraries are likely to implement error handling behavior that differs from what is
required in this specification, since error-handling behavior is often not defined in specifications that describe date syntaxes similar
to those used in this specification, and thus implementations tend to vary greatly in how they handle errors.

2.3.1 Common parser idioms § p64

The White_Space characters are those that have the Unicode property "White_Space" in the Unicode PropList.txt data file.
[UNICODE] p1223

Note
This is not to be confused with the "White_Space" value (abbreviated "WS") of the "Bidi_Class" property in the Unicode.txt data
file.

64
Some of the micro-parsers described below follow the pattern of having an input variable that holds the string being parsed, and
having a position variable pointing at the next character to parse in input.

2.3.2 Boolean attributes § p65

A number of attributes are boolean attributes. The presence of a boolean attribute on an element represents the true value, and the
absence of the attribute represents the false value.

If the attribute is present, its value must either be the empty string or a value that is an ASCII case-insensitive match for the attribute's
canonical name, with no leading or trailing whitespace.

Note
The values "true" and "false" are not allowed on boolean attributes. To represent a false value, the attribute has to be omitted
altogether.

Example

Here is an example of a checkbox that is checked and disabled. The checked p480 and disabled p551 attributes are the boolean
attributes.

<label><input type=checkbox checked name=cheese disabled> Cheese</label>

This could be equivalently written as this:

<label><input type=checkbox checked=checked name=cheese disabled=disabled> Cheese</label>

You can also mix styles; the following is still equivalent:

<label><input type='checkbox' checked name=cheese disabled=""> Cheese</label>

2.3.3 Keywords and enumerated attributes § p65

Some attributes are defined as taking one of a finite set of keywords. Such attributes are called enumerated attributes. The
keywords are each defined to map to a particular state (several keywords might map to the same state, in which case some of the
keywords are synonyms of each other; additionally, some of the keywords can be said to be non-conforming, and are only in the
specification for historical reasons). In addition, two default states can be given. The first is the invalid value default, the second is
the missing value default.

If an enumerated attribute is specified, the attribute's value must be an ASCII case-insensitive match for one of the given keywords
that are not said to be non-conforming, with no leading or trailing whitespace.

When the attribute is specified, if its value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for one of the given keywords then that keyword's state is
the state that the attribute represents. If the attribute value matches none of the given keywords, but the attribute has an invalid value
default p65 , then the attribute represents that state. Otherwise, there is no default, and invalid values mean that there is no state
represented.

When the attribute is not specified, if there is a missing value default p65 state defined, then that is the state represented by the
(missing) attribute. Otherwise, the absence of the attribute means that there is no state represented.

Note
The empty string can be a valid keyword.

65
 2.3.4 Numbers § p66

2.3.4.1 Signed integers § p66

A string is a valid integer if it consists of one or more ASCII digits, optionally prefixed with a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-).

A valid integer p66 without a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-) prefix represents the number that is represented in base ten by that string of
digits. A valid integer p66 with a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-) prefix represents the number represented in base ten by the string of digits
that follows the U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS, subtracted from zero.

The rules for parsing integers are as given in the following algorithm. When invoked, the steps must be followed in the order given,
aborting at the first step that returns a value. This algorithm will return either an integer or an error.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Let sign have the value "positive".

4. Skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

5. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

6. If the character indicated by position (the first character) is a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-):

1. Let sign be "negative".

2. Advance position to the next character.

3. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

Otherwise, if the character indicated by position (the first character) is a U+002B PLUS SIGN character (+):

1. Advance position to the next character. (The "+" is ignored, but it is not conforming.)

2. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

7. If the character indicated by position is not an ASCII digit, then return an error.

8. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position, and interpret the resulting sequence as a
base-ten integer. Let value be that integer.

9. If sign is "positive", return value, otherwise return the result of subtracting value from zero.

2.3.4.2 Non-negative integers § p66

A string is a valid non-negative integer if it consists of one or more ASCII digits.

A valid non-negative integer p66 represents the number that is represented in base ten by that string of digits.

The rules for parsing non-negative integers are as given in the following algorithm. When invoked, the steps must be followed in
the order given, aborting at the first step that returns a value. This algorithm will return either zero, a positive integer, or an error.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let value be the result of parsing input using the rules for parsing integers p66 .

3. If value is an error, return an error.

4. If value is less than zero, return an error.

5. Return value.

2.3.4.3 Floating-point numbers § p66

A string is a valid floating-point number if it consists of:

66
 1. Optionally, a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-).
2. One or both of the following, in the given order:
1. A series of one or more ASCII digits.
2. Both of the following, in the given order:
1. A single U+002E FULL STOP character (.).
2. A series of one or more ASCII digits.
3. Optionally:
1. Either a U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E character (e) or a U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E character (E).
2. Optionally, a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-) or U+002B PLUS SIGN character (+).
3. A series of one or more ASCII digits.

A valid floating-point number p66 represents the number obtained by multiplying the significand by ten raised to the power of the
exponent, where the significand is the first number, interpreted as base ten (including the decimal point and the number after the
decimal point, if any, and interpreting the significand as a negative number if the whole string starts with a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS
character (-) and the number is not zero), and where the exponent is the number after the E, if any (interpreted as a negative number
if there is a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-) between the E and the number and the number is not zero, or else ignoring a
U+002B PLUS SIGN character (+) between the E and the number if there is one). If there is no E, then the exponent is treated as zero.

Note
The Infinity and Not-a-Number (NaN) values are not valid floating-point numbers p66 .

Note
The valid floating-point number p66 concept is typically only used to restrict what is allowed for authors, while the user agent
requirements use the rules for parsing floating-point number values p67 below (e.g., the max p538 attribute of the progress p537
element). However, in some cases the user agent requirements include checking if a string is a valid floating-point number p66 (e.g.,
the value sanitization algorithm p480 for the Number p492 state of the input p476 element, or the parse a srcset attribute p330 algorithm).

The best representation of the number n as a floating-point number is the string obtained from running ToString(n). The
abstract operation ToString is not uniquely determined. When there are multiple possible strings that could be obtained from ToString
for a particular value, the user agent must always return the same string for that value (though it may differ from the value used by
other user agents).

The rules for parsing floating-point number values are as given in the following algorithm. This algorithm must be aborted at the
first step that returns something. This algorithm will return either a number or an error.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Let value have the value 1.

4. Let divisor have the value 1.

5. Let exponent have the value 1.

6. Skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

7. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

8. If the character indicated by position is a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-):

1. Change value and divisor to −1.

2. Advance position to the next character.

3. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

Otherwise, if the character indicated by position (the first character) is a U+002B PLUS SIGN character (+):

1. Advance position to the next character. (The "+" is ignored, but it is not conforming.)

2. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

9. If the character indicated by position is a U+002E FULL STOP (.), and that is not the last character in input, and the character
after the character indicated by position is an ASCII digit, then set value to zero and jump to the step labeled fraction.

10. If the character indicated by position is not an ASCII digit, then return an error.

11. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position, and interpret the resulting sequence as a
base-ten integer. Multiply value by that integer.

67
 12. If position is past the end of input, jump to the step labeled conversion.

13. Fraction: If the character indicated by position is a U+002E FULL STOP (.), run these substeps:

1. Advance position to the next character.

2. If position is past the end of input, or if the character indicated by position is not an ASCII digit, U+0065 LATIN
SMALL LETTER E (e), or U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E (E), then jump to the step labeled conversion.

3. If the character indicated by position is a U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E character (e) or a U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER E character (E), skip the remainder of these substeps.

4. Fraction loop: Multiply divisor by ten.

5. Add the value of the character indicated by position, interpreted as a base-ten digit (0..9) and divided by divisor, to
value.

6. Advance position to the next character.

7. If position is past the end of input, then jump to the step labeled conversion.

8. If the character indicated by position is an ASCII digit, jump back to the step labeled fraction loop in these
substeps.

14. If the character indicated by position is U+0065 (e) or a U+0045 (E), then:

1. Advance position to the next character.

2. If position is past the end of input, then jump to the step labeled conversion.

3. If the character indicated by position is a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-):

1. Change exponent to −1.

2. Advance position to the next character.

3. If position is past the end of input, then jump to the step labeled conversion.

Otherwise, if the character indicated by position is a U+002B PLUS SIGN character (+):

1. Advance position to the next character.

2. If position is past the end of input, then jump to the step labeled conversion.

4. If the character indicated by position is not an ASCII digit, then jump to the step labeled conversion.

5. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position, and interpret the resulting
sequence as a base-ten integer. Multiply exponent by that integer.

6. Multiply value by ten raised to the exponentth power.

15. Conversion: Let S be the set of finite IEEE 754 double-precision floating-point values except −0, but with two special values
added: 21024 and −21024.

16. Let rounded-value be the number in S that is closest to value, selecting the number with an even significand if there are two
equally close values. (The two special values 2 1024 and −21024 are considered to have even significands for this purpose.)

17. If rounded-value is 21024 or −21024, return an error.

18. Return rounded-value.

2.3.4.4 Percentages and lengths § p68

The rules for parsing dimension values are as given in the following algorithm. When invoked, the steps must be followed in the
order given, aborting at the first step that returns a value. This algorithm will return either a number greater than or equal to 0.0, or an
error; if a number is returned, then it is further categorized as either a percentage or a length.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

68
 2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

4. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

5. If the character indicated by position is a U+002B PLUS SIGN character (+), advance position to the next character.

6. If position is past the end of input, return an error.

7. If the character indicated by position is not an ASCII digit, then return an error.

8. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position, and interpret the resulting sequence as a
base-ten integer. Let value be that number.

9. If position is past the end of input, return value as a length.

10. If the character indicated by position is a U+002E FULL STOP character (.):

1. Advance position to the next character.

2. If position is past the end of input, or if the character indicated by position is not an ASCII digit, then return value
as a length.

3. Let divisor have the value 1.

4. Fraction loop: Multiply divisor by ten.

5. Add the value of the character indicated by position, interpreted as a base-ten digit (0..9) and divided by divisor, to
value.

6. Advance position to the next character.

7. If position is past the end of input, then return value as a length.

8. If the character indicated by position is an ASCII digit, return to the step labeled fraction loop in these substeps.

11. If position is past the end of input, return value as a length.

12. If the character indicated by position is a U+0025 PERCENT SIGN character (%), return value as a percentage.

13. Return value as a length.

2.3.4.5 Non-zero percentages and lengths § p69

The rules for parsing nonzero dimension values are as given in the following algorithm. When invoked, the steps must be
followed in the order given, aborting at the first step that returns a value. This algorithm will return either a number greater than 0.0,
or an error; if a number is returned, then it is further categorized as either a percentage or a length.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let value be the result of parsing input using the rules for parsing dimension values p68 .

3. If value is an error, return an error.

4. If value is zero, return an error.

5. If value is a percentage, return value as a percentage.

6. Return value as a length.

2.3.4.6 Lists of floating-point numbers § p69

A valid list of floating-point numbers is a number of valid floating-point numbers p66 separated by U+002C COMMA characters, with
no other characters (e.g. no ASCII whitespace). In addition, there might be restrictions on the number of floating-point numbers that
can be given, or on the range of values allowed.

69
 The rules for parsing a list of floating-point numbers are as follows:

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Let numbers be an initially empty list of floating-point numbers. This list will be the result of this algorithm.

4. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII whitespace, U+002C COMMA, or U+003B SEMICOLON characters from input
given position. This skips past any leading delimiters.

5. While position is not past the end of input:

1. Collect a sequence of code points that are not ASCII whitespace, U+002C COMMA, U+003B SEMICOLON, ASCII
digits, U+002E FULL STOP, or U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS characters from input given position. This skips past leading
garbage.

2. Collect a sequence of code points that are not ASCII whitespace, U+002C COMMA, or U+003B SEMICOLON
characters from input given position, and let unparsed number be the result.

3. Let number be the result of parsing unparsed number using the rules for parsing floating-point number values p67 .

4. If number is an error, set number to zero.

5. Append number to numbers.

6. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII whitespace, U+002C COMMA, or U+003B SEMICOLON characters
from input given position. This skips past the delimiter.

6. Return numbers.

2.3.4.7 Lists of dimensions § p70

The rules for parsing a list of dimensions are as follows. These rules return a list of zero or more pairs consisting of a number and
a unit, the unit being one of percentage, relative, and absolute.

1. Let raw input be the string being parsed.

2. If the last character in raw input is a U+002C COMMA character (,), then remove that character from raw input.

3. Split the string raw input on commas. Let raw tokens be the resulting list of tokens.

4. Let result be an empty list of number/unit pairs.

5. For each token in raw tokens, run the following substeps:

1. Let input be the token.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Let value be the number 0.

4. Let unit be absolute.

5. If position is past the end of input, set unit to relative and jump to the last substep.

6. If the character at position is an ASCII digit, collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given
position, interpret the resulting sequence as an integer in base ten, and increment value by that integer.

7. If the character at position is U+002E (.), then:

1. Collect a sequence of code points consisting of ASCII whitespace and ASCII digits from input given
position. Let s be the resulting sequence.

2. Remove all ASCII whitespace in s.

3. If s is not the empty string, then:

1. Let length be the number of characters in s (after the spaces were removed).

70
 2. Let fraction be the result of interpreting s as a base-ten integer, and then dividing that number
by 10length.

3. Increment value by fraction.

8. Skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

9. If the character at position is a U+0025 PERCENT SIGN character (%), then set unit to percentage.

Otherwise, if the character at position is a U+002A ASTERISK character (*), then set unit to relative.

10. Add an entry to result consisting of the number given by value and the unit given by unit.

6. Return the list result.

2.3.5 Dates and times § p71

In the algorithms below, the number of days in month month of year year is: 31 if month is 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, or 12; 30 if month is
4, 6, 9, or 11; 29 if month is 2 and year is a number divisible by 400, or if year is a number divisible by 4 but not by 100; and 28
otherwise. This takes into account leap years in the Gregorian calendar. [GREGORIAN] p1219

When ASCII digits are used in the date and time syntaxes defined in this section, they express numbers in base ten.

Note
While the formats described here are intended to be subsets of the corresponding ISO8601 formats, this specification defines
parsing rules in much more detail than ISO8601. Implementors are therefore encouraged to carefully examine any date parsing
libraries before using them to implement the parsing rules described below; ISO8601 libraries might not parse dates and times in
exactly the same manner. [ISO8601] p1220

Where this specification refers to the proleptic Gregorian calendar, it means the modern Gregorian calendar, extrapolated
backwards to year 1. A date in the proleptic Gregorian calendar p71 , sometimes explicitly referred to as a proleptic-Gregorian date, is
one that is described using that calendar even if that calendar was not in use at the time (or place) in question. [GREGORIAN] p1219

Note
The use of the Gregorian calendar as the wire format in this specification is an arbitrary choice resulting from the cultural biases of
those involved in the decision. See also the section discussing date, time, and number formats p469 in forms (for authors),
implementation notes regarding localization of form controls p504 , and the time p251 element.

2.3.5.1 Months § p71

A month consists of a specific proleptic-Gregorian date p71 with no time-zone information and no date information beyond a year and a
month. [GREGORIAN] p1219

A string is a valid month string representing a year year and month month if it consists of the following components in the given
order:

1. Four or more ASCII digits, representing year, where year > 0

2. A U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-)

3. Two ASCII digits, representing the month month, in the range 1 ≤ month ≤ 12

The rules to parse a month string are as follows. This will return either a year and month, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm
says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Parse a month component p72 to obtain year and month. If this returns nothing, then fail.

4. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

71
 5. Return year and month.

The rules to parse a month component, given an input string and a position, are as follows. This will return either a year and a
month, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not at least four
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the year.

2. If year is not a number greater than zero, then fail.

3. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character, then fail.
Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

4. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the month.

5. If month is not a number in the range 1 ≤ month ≤ 12, then fail.

6. Return year and month.

2.3.5.2 Dates § p72

A date consists of a specific proleptic-Gregorian date p71 with no time-zone information, consisting of a year, a month, and a day.
[GREGORIAN] p1219

A string is a valid date string representing a year year, month month, and day day if it consists of the following components in the
given order:

1. A valid month string p71 , representing year and month

2. A U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-)

3. Two ASCII digits, representing day, in the range 1 ≤ day ≤ maxday where maxday is the number of days in the month month
and year year p71

The rules to parse a date string are as follows. This will return either a date, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it
"fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Parse a date component p72 to obtain year, month, and day. If this returns nothing, then fail.

4. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

5. Let date be the date with year year, month month, and day day.

6. Return date.

The rules to parse a date component, given an input string and a position, are as follows. This will return either a year, a month, and
a day, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Parse a month component p72 to obtain year and month. If this returns nothing, then fail.

2. Let maxday be the number of days in month month of year year p71 .

3. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character, then fail.
Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

4. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the day.

5. If day is not a number in the range 1 ≤ day ≤ maxday, then fail.

6. Return year, month, and day.

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2.3.5.3 Yearless dates § p73

A yearless date consists of a Gregorian month and a day within that month, but with no associated year. [GREGORIAN] p1219

A string is a valid yearless date string representing a month month and a day day if it consists of the following components in the
given order:

1. Optionally, two U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS characters (-)

2. Two ASCII digits, representing the month month, in the range 1 ≤ month ≤ 12

3. A U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-)

4. Two ASCII digits, representing day, in the range 1 ≤ day ≤ maxday where maxday is the number of days p71 in the month
month and any arbitrary leap year (e.g. 4 or 2000)

Note
In other words, if the month is "02", meaning February, then the day can be 29, as if the year was a leap year.

The rules to parse a yearless date string are as follows. This will return either a month and a day, or nothing. If at any point the
algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Parse a yearless date component p73 to obtain month and day. If this returns nothing, then fail.

4. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

5. Return month and day.

The rules to parse a yearless date component, given an input string and a position, are as follows. This will return either a month
and a day, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Collect a sequence of code points that are U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS characters (-) from input given position. If the collected
sequence is not exactly zero or two characters long, then fail.

2. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the month.

3. If month is not a number in the range 1 ≤ month ≤ 12, then fail.

4. Let maxday be the number of days p71 in month month of any arbitrary leap year (e.g. 4 or 2000).

5. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character, then fail.
Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

6. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the day.

7. If day is not a number in the range 1 ≤ day ≤ maxday, then fail.

8. Return month and day.

2.3.5.4 Times § p73

A time consists of a specific time with no time-zone information, consisting of an hour, a minute, a second, and a fraction of a second.

A string is a valid time string representing an hour hour, a minute minute, and a second second if it consists of the following
components in the given order:

1. Two ASCII digits, representing hour, in the range 0 ≤ hour ≤ 23

2. A U+003A COLON character (:)

3. Two ASCII digits, representing minute, in the range 0 ≤ minute ≤ 59

73
 4. If second is nonzero, or optionally if second is zero:
1. A U+003A COLON character (:)
2. Two ASCII digits, representing the integer part of second, in the range 0 ≤ s ≤ 59
3. If second is not an integer, or optionally if second is an integer:
1. A U+002E FULL STOP character (.)
2. One, two, or three ASCII digits, representing the fractional part of second

Note
The second component cannot be 60 or 61; leap seconds cannot be represented.

The rules to parse a time string are as follows. This will return either a time, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it
"fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Parse a time component p74 to obtain hour, minute, and second. If this returns nothing, then fail.

4. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

5. Let time be the time with hour hour, minute minute, and second second.

6. Return time.

The rules to parse a time component, given an input string and a position, are as follows. This will return either an hour, a minute,
and a second, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns
nothing.

1. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the hour.

2. If hour is not a number in the range 0 ≤ hour ≤ 23, then fail.

3. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+003A COLON character, then fail. Otherwise,
move position forwards one character.

4. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the minute.

5. If minute is not a number in the range 0 ≤ minute ≤ 59, then fail.

6. Let second be 0.

7. If position is not beyond the end of input and the character at position is U+003A (:), then:

1. Advance position to the next character in input.

2. If position is beyond the end of input, or at the last character in input, or if the next two characters in input starting
at position are not both ASCII digits, then fail.

3. Collect a sequence of code points that are either ASCII digits or U+002E FULL STOP characters from input given
position. If the collected sequence is three characters long, or if it is longer than three characters long and the third
character is not a U+002E FULL STOP character, or if it has more than one U+002E FULL STOP character, then fail.
Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten number (possibly with a fractional part). Set second to
that number.

4. If second is not a number in the range 0 ≤ second < 60, then fail.

8. Return hour, minute, and second.

2.3.5.5 Local dates and times § p74

A local date and time consists of a specific proleptic-Gregorian date p71 , consisting of a year, a month, and a day, and a time,
consisting of an hour, a minute, a second, and a fraction of a second, but expressed without a time zone. [GREGORIAN] p1219

74
A string is a valid local date and time string representing a date and time if it consists of the following components in the given
order:

1. A valid date string p72 representing the date

2. A U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character (T) or a U+0020 SPACE character

3. A valid time string p73 representing the time

A string is a valid normalized local date and time string representing a date and time if it consists of the following components in
the given order:

1. A valid date string p72 representing the date

2. A U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character (T)

3. A valid time string p73 representing the time, expressed as the shortest possible string for the given time (e.g. omitting the
seconds component entirely if the given time is zero seconds past the minute)

The rules to parse a local date and time string are as follows. This will return either a date and time, or nothing. If at any point the
algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Parse a date component p72 to obtain year, month, and day. If this returns nothing, then fail.

4. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is neither a U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character (T)
nor a U+0020 SPACE character, then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

5. Parse a time component p74 to obtain hour, minute, and second. If this returns nothing, then fail.

6. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

7. Let date be the date with year year, month month, and day day.

8. Let time be the time with hour hour, minute minute, and second second.

9. Return date and time.

2.3.5.6 Time zones § p75

A time-zone offset consists of a signed number of hours and minutes.

A string is a valid time-zone offset string representing a time-zone offset if it consists of either:

• A U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z character (Z), allowed only if the time zone is UTC

• Or, the following components, in the given order:

1. Either a U+002B PLUS SIGN character (+) or, if the time-zone offset is not zero, a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS
character (-), representing the sign of the time-zone offset

2. Two ASCII digits, representing the hours component hour of the time-zone offset, in the range 0 ≤ hour ≤ 23

3. Optionally, a U+003A COLON character (:)

4. Two ASCII digits, representing the minutes component minute of the time-zone offset, in the range 0 ≤ minute ≤ 59

Note
This format allows for time-zone offsets from -23:59 to +23:59. Right now, in practice, the range of offsets of actual time zones is
-12:00 to +14:00, and the minutes component of offsets of actual time zones is always either 00, 30, or 45. There is no guarantee
that this will remain so forever, however, since time zones are used as political footballs and are thus subject to very whimsical
policy decisions.

75
 Note
See also the usage notes and examples in the global date and time p77 section below for details on using time-zone offsets with
historical times that predate the formation of formal time zones.

The rules to parse a time-zone offset string are as follows. This will return either a time-zone offset, or nothing. If at any point the
algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Parse a time-zone offset component p76 to obtain timezonehours and timezoneminutes. If this returns nothing, then fail.

4. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

5. Return the time-zone offset that is timezonehours hours and timezoneminutes minutes from UTC.

The rules to parse a time-zone offset component, given an input string and a position, are as follows. This will return either time-
zone hours and time-zone minutes, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that
point and returns nothing.

1. If the character at position is a U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z character (Z), then:

1. Let timezonehours be 0.

2. Let timezoneminutes be 0.

3. Advance position to the next character in input.

Otherwise, if the character at position is either a U+002B PLUS SIGN (+) or a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS (-), then:

1. If the character at position is a U+002B PLUS SIGN (+), let sign be "positive". Otherwise, it's a U+002D HYPHEN-
MINUS (-); let sign be "negative".

2. Advance position to the next character in input.

3. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. Let s be the collected sequence.

4. If s is exactly two characters long, then:

1. Interpret s as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the timezonehours.

2. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+003A COLON character,
then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

3. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected
sequence is not exactly two characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a
base-ten integer. Let that number be the timezoneminutes.

If s is exactly four characters long, then:

1. Interpret the first two characters of s as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the timezonehours.

2. Interpret the last two characters of s as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the timezoneminutes.

Otherwise, fail.

5. If timezonehours is not a number in the range 0 ≤ timezonehours ≤ 23, then fail.

6. If sign is "negative", then negate timezonehours.

7. If timezoneminutes is not a number in the range 0 ≤ timezoneminutes ≤ 59, then fail.

8. If sign is "negative", then negate timezoneminutes.

Otherwise, fail.

2. Return timezonehours and timezoneminutes.

76
2.3.5.7 Global dates and times § p77

A global date and time consists of a specific proleptic-Gregorian date p71 , consisting of a year, a month, and a day, and a time,
consisting of an hour, a minute, a second, and a fraction of a second, expressed with a time-zone offset, consisting of a signed number
of hours and minutes. [GREGORIAN] p1219

A string is a valid global date and time string representing a date, time, and a time-zone offset if it consists of the following
components in the given order:

1. A valid date string p72 representing the date

2. A U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character (T) or a U+0020 SPACE character

3. A valid time string p73 representing the time

4. A valid time-zone offset string p75 representing the time-zone offset

Times in dates before the formation of UTC in the mid twentieth century must be expressed and interpreted in terms of UT1
(contemporary Earth solar time at the 0° longitude), not UTC (the approximation of UT1 that ticks in SI seconds). Time before the
formation of time zones must be expressed and interpreted as UT1 times with explicit time zones that approximate the contemporary
difference between the appropriate local time and the time observed at the location of Greenwich, London.

Example

The following are some examples of dates written as valid global date and time strings p77 .

"0037-12-13 00:00Z"
Midnight in areas using London time on the birthday of Nero (the Roman Emperor). See below for further discussion on which
date this actually corresponds to.

"1979-10-14T12:00:00.001-04:00"
One millisecond after noon on October 14th 1979, in the time zone in use on the east coast of the USA during daylight saving
time.

"8592-01-01T02:09+02:09"
Midnight UTC on the 1st of January, 8592. The time zone associated with that time is two hours and nine minutes ahead of UTC,
which is not currently a real time zone, but is nonetheless allowed.

Several things are notable about these dates:

• Years with fewer than four digits have to be zero-padded. The date "37-12-13" would not be a valid date.

• If the "T" is replaced by a space, it must be a single space character. The string "2001-12-21 12:00Z" (with two spaces
between the components) would not be parsed successfully.

• To unambiguously identify a moment in time prior to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar (insofar as moments in
time before the formation of UTC can be unambiguously identified), the date has to be first converted to the Gregorian
calendar from the calendar in use at the time (e.g. from the Julian calendar). The date of Nero's birth is the 15th of
December 37, in the Julian Calendar, which is the 13th of December 37 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar p71 .

• The time and time-zone offset components are not optional.

• Dates before the year one can't be represented as a datetime in this version of HTML.

• Times of specific events in ancient times are, at best, approximations, since time was not well coordinated or measured
until relatively recent decades.

• Time-zone offsets differ based on daylight saving time.

The rules to parse a global date and time string are as follows. This will return either a time in UTC, with associated time-zone
offset information for round-tripping or display purposes, or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it
is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

77
 3. Parse a date component p72 to obtain year, month, and day. If this returns nothing, then fail.

4. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is neither a U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character (T)
nor a U+0020 SPACE character, then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

5. Parse a time component p74 to obtain hour, minute, and second. If this returns nothing, then fail.

6. If position is beyond the end of input, then fail.

7. Parse a time-zone offset component p76 to obtain timezonehours and timezoneminutes. If this returns nothing, then fail.

8. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

9. Let time be the moment in time at year year, month month, day day, hours hour, minute minute, second second, subtracting
timezonehours hours and timezoneminutes minutes. That moment in time is a moment in the UTC time zone.

10. Let timezone be timezonehours hours and timezoneminutes minutes from UTC.

11. Return time and timezone.

2.3.5.8 Weeks § p78

A week consists of a week-year number and a week number representing a seven-day period starting on a Monday. Each week-year in
this calendaring system has either 52 or 53 such seven-day periods, as defined below. The seven-day period starting on the Gregorian
date Monday December 29th 1969 (1969-12-29) is defined as week number 1 in week-year 1970. Consecutive weeks are numbered
sequentially. The week before the number 1 week in a week-year is the last week in the previous week-year, and vice versa.
[GREGORIAN] p1219

A week-year with a number year has 53 weeks if it corresponds to either a year year in the proleptic Gregorian calendar p71 that has a
Thursday as its first day (January 1st), or a year year in the proleptic Gregorian calendar p71 that has a Wednesday as its first day
(January 1st) and where year is a number divisible by 400, or a number divisible by 4 but not by 100. All other week-years have 52
weeks.

The week number of the last day of a week-year with 53 weeks is 53; the week number of the last day of a week-year with 52
weeks is 52.

Note
The week-year number of a particular day can be different than the number of the year that contains that day in the proleptic
Gregorian calendar p71 . The first week in a week-year y is the week that contains the first Thursday of the Gregorian year y.

Note
For modern purposes, a week p78 as defined here is equivalent to ISO weeks as defined in ISO 8601. [ISO8601] p1220

A string is a valid week string representing a week-year year and week week if it consists of the following components in the given
order:

1. Four or more ASCII digits, representing year, where year > 0

2. A U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-)

3. A U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W character (W)

4. Two ASCII digits, representing the week week, in the range 1 ≤ week ≤ maxweek, where maxweek is the week number of the
last day p78 of week-year year

The rules to parse a week string are as follows. This will return either a week-year number and week number, or nothing. If at any
point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not at least four
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the year.

4. If year is not a number greater than zero, then fail.

78
 5. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character, then fail.
Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

6. If position is beyond the end of input or if the character at position is not a U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W character (W),
then fail. Otherwise, move position forwards one character.

7. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. If the collected sequence is not exactly two
characters long, then fail. Otherwise, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer. Let that number be the week.

8. Let maxweek be the week number of the last day p78 of year year.

9. If week is not a number in the range 1 ≤ week ≤ maxweek, then fail.

10. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

11. Return the week-year number year and the week number week.

2.3.5.9 Durations § p79

A duration consists of a number of seconds.

Note
Since months and seconds are not comparable (a month is not a precise number of seconds, but is instead a period whose exact
length depends on the precise day from which it is measured) a duration p79 as defined in this specification cannot include months
(or years, which are equivalent to twelve months). Only durations that describe a specific number of seconds can be described.

A string is a valid duration string representing a duration p79 t if it consists of either of the following:

• A literal U+0050 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P character followed by one or more of the following subcomponents, in the order
given, where the number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds corresponds to the same number of seconds as in t:

1. One or more ASCII digits followed by a U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D character, representing a number of days.

2. A U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character followed by one or more of the following subcomponents, in the order
given:

1. One or more ASCII digits followed by a U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H character, representing a
number of hours.

2. One or more ASCII digits followed by a U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M character, representing a
number of minutes.

3. The following components:

1. One or more ASCII digits, representing a number of seconds.

2. Optionally, a U+002E FULL STOP character (.) followed by one, two, or three ASCII digits,
representing a fraction of a second.

3. A U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S character.

Note
This, as with a number of other date- and time-related microsyntaxes defined in this specification, is based on one of the
formats defined in ISO 8601. [ISO8601] p1220

• One or more duration time components p79 , each with a different duration time component scale p80 , in any order; the sum of
the represented seconds being equal to the number of seconds in t.

A duration time component is a string consisting of the following components:

1. Zero or more ASCII whitespace.

2. One or more ASCII digits, representing a number of time units, scaled by the duration time component scale p80
specified (see below) to represent a number of seconds.

3. If the duration time component scale p80 specified is 1 (i.e. the units are seconds), then, optionally, a U+002E FULL
STOP character (.) followed by one, two, or three ASCII digits, representing a fraction of a second.
79
 4. Zero or more ASCII whitespace.

5. One of the following characters, representing the duration time component scale of the time unit used in the
numeric part of the duration time component p79 :

U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W character

U+0077 LATIN SMALL LETTER W character
Weeks. The scale is 604800.

U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D character

U+0064 LATIN SMALL LETTER D character
Days. The scale is 86400.

U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H character

U+0068 LATIN SMALL LETTER H character
Hours. The scale is 3600.

U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M character

U+006D LATIN SMALL LETTER M character
Minutes. The scale is 60.

U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S character

U+0073 LATIN SMALL LETTER S character
Seconds. The scale is 1.

6. Zero or more ASCII whitespace.

Note
This is not based on any of the formats in ISO 8601. It is intended to be a more human-readable alternative to the ISO
8601 duration format.

The rules to parse a duration string are as follows. This will return either a duration p79 or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says
that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Let months, seconds, and component count all be zero.

4. Let M-disambiguator be minutes.

Note
This flag's other value is months. It is used to disambiguate the "M" unit in ISO8601 durations, which use the same unit
for months and minutes. Months are not allowed, but are parsed for future compatibility and to avoid misinterpreting
ISO8601 durations that would be valid in other contexts.

5. Skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

6. If position is past the end of input, then fail.

7. If the character in input pointed to by position is a U+0050 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P character, then advance position to the
next character, set M-disambiguator to months, and skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

8. While true:

1. Let units be undefined. It will be assigned one of the following values: years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes,
and seconds.

2. Let next character be undefined. It is used to process characters from the input.

3. If position is past the end of input, then break.

4. If the character in input pointed to by position is a U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character, then advance
position to the next character, set M-disambiguator to minutes, skip ASCII whitespace within input given position,
and continue.

80
 5. Set next character to the character in input pointed to by position.

6. If next character is a U+002E FULL STOP character (.), then let N equal zero. (Do not advance position. That is
taken care of below.)

Otherwise, if next character is an ASCII digit, then collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input
given position, interpret the resulting sequence as a base-ten integer, and let N be that number.

Otherwise next character is not part of a number; fail.

7. If position is past the end of input, then fail.

8. Set next character to the character in input pointed to by position, and this time advance position to the next
character. (If next character was a U+002E FULL STOP character (.) before, it will still be that character this time.)

9. If next character is U+002E (.), then:

1. Collect a sequence of code points that are ASCII digits from input given position. Let s be the resulting
sequence.

2. If s is the empty string, then fail.

3. Let length be the number of characters in s.

4. Let fraction be the result of interpreting s as a base-ten integer, and then dividing that number by
10length.

5. Increment N by fraction.

6. Skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

7. If position is past the end of input, then fail.

8. Set next character to the character in input pointed to by position, and advance position to the next
character.

9. If next character is neither a U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S character nor a U+0073 LATIN SMALL
LETTER S character, then fail.

10. Set units to seconds.

Otherwise:

1. If next character is ASCII whitespace, then skip ASCII whitespace within input given position, set next
character to the character in input pointed to by position, and advance position to the next character.

2. If next character is a U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y character, or a U+0079 LATIN SMALL LETTER Y
character, set units to years and set M-disambiguator to months.

If next character is a U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M character or a U+006D LATIN SMALL LETTER M
character, and M-disambiguator is months, then set units to months.

If next character is a U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W character or a U+0077 LATIN SMALL LETTER W
character, set units to weeks and set M-disambiguator to minutes.

If next character is a U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D character or a U+0064 LATIN SMALL LETTER D
character, set units to days and set M-disambiguator to minutes.

If next character is a U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H character or a U+0068 LATIN SMALL LETTER H
character, set units to hours and set M-disambiguator to minutes.

If next character is a U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M character or a U+006D LATIN SMALL LETTER M
character, and M-disambiguator is minutes, then set units to minutes.

If next character is a U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S character or a U+0073 LATIN SMALL LETTER S
character, set units to seconds and set M-disambiguator to minutes.

Otherwise if next character is none of the above characters, then fail.

10. Increment component count.

81
 11. Let multiplier be 1.

12. If units is years, multiply multiplier by 12 and set units to months.

13. If units is months, add the product of N and multiplier to months.

Otherwise:

1. If units is weeks, multiply multiplier by 7 and set units to days.

2. If units is days, multiply multiplier by 24 and set units to hours.

3. If units is hours, multiply multiplier by 60 and set units to minutes.

4. If units is minutes, multiply multiplier by 60 and set units to seconds.

5. Forcibly, units is now seconds. Add the product of N and multiplier to seconds.

14. Skip ASCII whitespace within input given position.

9. If component count is zero, fail.

10. If months is not zero, fail.

11. Return the duration p79 consisting of seconds seconds.

2.3.5.10 Vaguer moments in time § p82

A string is a valid date string with optional time if it is also one of the following:

• A valid date string p72

• A valid global date and time string p77

The rules to parse a date or time string are as follows. The algorithm will return either a date p72 , a time p73 , a global date and
time p77 , or nothing. If at any point the algorithm says that it "fails", this means that it is aborted at that point and returns nothing.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Set start position to the same position as position.

4. Set the date present and time present flags to true.

5. Parse a date component p72 to obtain year, month, and day. If this fails, then set the date present flag to false.

6. If date present is true, and position is not beyond the end of input, and the character at position is either a U+0054 LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER T character (T) or a U+0020 SPACE character, then advance position to the next character in input.

Otherwise, if date present is true, and either position is beyond the end of input or the character at position is neither a
U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T character (T) nor a U+0020 SPACE character, then set time present to false.

Otherwise, if date present is false, set position back to the same position as start position.

7. If the time present flag is true, then parse a time component p74 to obtain hour, minute, and second. If this returns nothing,
then fail.

8. If the date present and time present flags are both true, but position is beyond the end of input, then fail.

9. If the date present and time present flags are both true, parse a time-zone offset component p76 to obtain timezonehours and
timezoneminutes. If this returns nothing, then fail.

10. If position is not beyond the end of input, then fail.

11. If the date present flag is true and the time present flag is false, then let date be the date with year year, month month, and
day day, and return date.

82
 Otherwise, if the time present flag is true and the date present flag is false, then let time be the time with hour hour, minute
minute, and second second, and return time.

Otherwise, let time be the moment in time at year year, month month, day day, hours hour, minute minute, second second,
subtracting timezonehours hours and timezoneminutes minutes, that moment in time being a moment in the UTC time zone;
let timezone be timezonehours hours and timezoneminutes minutes from UTC; and return time and timezone.

2.3.6 Colors § p83

A simple color consists of three 8-bit numbers in the range 0..255, representing the red, green, and blue components of the color
respectively, in the sRGB color space. [SRGB] p1223

A string is a valid simple color if it is exactly seven characters long, and the first character is a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character (#),
and the remaining six characters are all ASCII hex digits, with the first two digits representing the red component, the middle two digits
representing the green component, and the last two digits representing the blue component, in hexadecimal.

A string is a valid lowercase simple color if it is a valid simple color p83 and doesn't use any characters in the range U+0041 LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER A to U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F.

The rules for parsing simple color values are as given in the following algorithm. When invoked, the steps must be followed in the
order given, aborting at the first step that returns a value. This algorithm will return either a simple color p83 or an error.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. If input is not exactly seven characters long, then return an error.

3. If the first character in input is not a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character (#), then return an error.

4. If the last six characters of input are not all ASCII hex digits, then return an error.

5. Let result be a simple color p83 .

6. Interpret the second and third characters as a hexadecimal number and let the result be the red component of result.

7. Interpret the fourth and fifth characters as a hexadecimal number and let the result be the green component of result.

8. Interpret the sixth and seventh characters as a hexadecimal number and let the result be the blue component of result.

9. Return result.

The rules for serializing simple color values given a simple color p83 are as given in the following algorithm:

1. Let result be a string consisting of a single U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character (#).

2. Convert the red, green, and blue components in turn to two-digit hexadecimal numbers using ASCII lower hex digits, zero-
padding if necessary, and append these numbers to result, in the order red, green, blue.

3. Return result, which will be a valid lowercase simple color p83 .

Some obsolete legacy attributes parse colors in a more complicated manner, using the rules for parsing a legacy color value,
which are given in the following algorithm. When invoked, the steps must be followed in the order given, aborting at the first step that
returns a value. This algorithm will return either a simple color p83 or an error.

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. If input is the empty string, then return an error.

3. Strip leading and trailing ASCII whitespace from input.

4. If input is an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string "transparent", then return an error.

5. If input is an ASCII case-insensitive match for one of the named colors, then return the simple color p83 corresponding to that
keyword. [CSSCOLOR] p1218

83
 Note
CSS2 System Colors are not recognized.

6. If input is four characters long, and the first character in input is U+0023 (#), and the last three characters of input are all
ASCII hex digits, then:

1. Let result be a simple color p83 .

2. Interpret the second character of input as a hexadecimal digit; let the red component of result be the resulting
number multiplied by 17.

3. Interpret the third character of input as a hexadecimal digit; let the green component of result be the resulting
number multiplied by 17.

4. Interpret the fourth character of input as a hexadecimal digit; let the blue component of result be the resulting
number multiplied by 17.

5. Return result.

7. Replace any characters in input that have a code point greater than U+FFFF (i.e., any characters that are not in the basic
multilingual plane) with the two-character string "00".

8. If input is longer than 128 characters, truncate input, leaving only the first 128 characters.

9. If the first character in input is a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character (#), remove it.

10. Replace any character in input that is not an ASCII hex digit with the character U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0).

11. While input's length is zero or not a multiple of three, append a U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) character to input.

12. Split input into three strings of equal length, to obtain three components. Let length be the length of those components (one
third the length of input).

13. If length is greater than 8, then remove the leading length-8 characters in each component, and let length be 8.

14. While length is greater than two and the first character in each component is a U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) character, remove
that character and reduce length by one.

15. If length is still greater than two, truncate each component, leaving only the first two characters in each.

16. Let result be a simple color p83 .

17. Interpret the first component as a hexadecimal number; let the red component of result be the resulting number.

18. Interpret the second component as a hexadecimal number; let the green component of result be the resulting number.

19. Interpret the third component as a hexadecimal number; let the blue component of result be the resulting number.

20. Return result.

Note
The 2D graphics context p617 has a separate color syntax that also handles opacity.

2.3.7 Space-separated tokens § p84

A set of space-separated tokens is a string containing zero or more words (known as tokens) separated by one or more ASCII
whitespace, where words consist of any string of one or more characters, none of which are ASCII whitespace.

A string containing a set of space-separated tokens p84 may have leading or trailing ASCII whitespace.

An unordered set of unique space-separated tokens is a set of space-separated tokens p84 where none of the tokens are
duplicated.

An ordered set of unique space-separated tokens is a set of space-separated tokens p84 where none of the tokens are duplicated
but where the order of the tokens is meaningful.

84
Sets of space-separated tokens p84 sometimes have a defined set of allowed values. When a set of allowed values is defined, the tokens
must all be from that list of allowed values; other values are non-conforming. If no such set of allowed values is provided, then all
values are conforming.

Note
How tokens in a set of space-separated tokens p84 are to be compared (e.g. case-sensitively or not) is defined on a per-set basis.

2.3.8 Comma-separated tokens § p85

A set of comma-separated tokens is a string containing zero or more tokens each separated from the next by a single U+002C
COMMA character (,), where tokens consist of any string of zero or more characters, neither beginning nor ending with ASCII
whitespace, nor containing any U+002C COMMA characters (,), and optionally surrounded by ASCII whitespace.

Example
For instance, the string " a ,b,,d d " consists of four tokens: "a", "b", the empty string, and "d d". Leading and trailing
whitespace around each token doesn't count as part of the token, and the empty string can be a token.

Sets of comma-separated tokens p85 sometimes have further restrictions on what consists a valid token. When such restrictions are
defined, the tokens must all fit within those restrictions; other values are non-conforming. If no such restrictions are specified, then all
values are conforming.

2.3.9 References § p85

A valid hash-name reference to an element of type type is a string consisting of a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character (#) followed by
a string which exactly matches the value of the name attribute of an element with type type in the same tree.

The rules for parsing a hash-name reference to an element of type type, given a context node scope, are as follows:

1. If the string being parsed does not contain a U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character, or if the first such character in the string is
the last character in the string, then return null.

2. Let s be the string from the character immediately after the first U+0023 NUMBER SIGN character in the string being parsed
up to the end of that string.

3. Return the first element of type type in scope's tree, in tree order, that has an id p133 or name attribute whose value is s, or
null if there is no such element.

Note
Although id p133 attributes are accounted for when parsing, they are not used in determining whether a value is a valid
hash-name reference p85 . That is, a hash-name reference that refers to an element based on id p133 is a conformance error
(unless that element also has a name attribute with the same value).

2.3.10 Media queries § p85

A string is a valid media query list if it matches the <media-query-list> production of the Media Queries specification. [MQ] p1221

A string matches the environment of the user if it is the empty string, a string consisting of only ASCII whitespace, or is a media
query list that matches the user's environment according to the definitions given in the Media Queries specification. [MQ] p1221

2.4 URLs § p85

2.4.1 Terminology § p85

A string is a valid non-empty URL if it is a valid URL string but it is not the empty string.
85
 A string is a valid URL potentially surrounded by spaces if, after stripping leading and trailing ASCII whitespace from it, it is a valid
URL string.

A string is a valid non-empty URL potentially surrounded by spaces if, after stripping leading and trailing ASCII whitespace from
it, it is a valid non-empty URL p85 .

This specification defines the URL about:legacy-compat as a reserved, though unresolvable, about: URL, for use in DOCTYPE p1006 s in
HTML documents when needed for compatibility with XML tools. [ABOUT] p1217

This specification defines the URL about:html-kind as a reserved, though unresolvable, about: URL, that is used as an identifier for
kinds of media tracks. [ABOUT] p1217

This specification defines the URL about:srcdoc as a reserved, though unresolvable, about: URL, that is used as the URL of iframe
srcdoc documents p348 . [ABOUT] p1217

The fallback base URL of a Document p110 object document is the URL record obtained by running these steps:

1. If document is an iframe srcdoc document p348 , then return the document base URL p86 of document's browsing context p779 's
browsing context container p780 's node document.

2. If document's URL is about:blank p51 , and document's browsing context p779 has a creator browsing context p779 , then return
the creator base URL p780 .

3. Return document's URL.

The document base URL of a Document p110 object is the absolute URL obtained by running these steps:

1. If there is no base p151 element that has an href p152 attribute in the Document p110 , then return the Document p110 's fallback base
URL p86 .

2. Otherwise, return the frozen base URL p152 of the first base p151 element in the Document p110 that has an href p152 attribute, in
tree order.

2.4.2 Parsing URLs § p86

Parsing a URL is the process of taking a string and obtaining the URL record that it represents. While this process is defined in the
WHATWG URL standard, the HTML standard defines a wrapper for convenience. [URL] p1223

Note
This wrapper is only useful when the character encoding for the URL parser has to match that of the document or environment
settings object for legacy reasons. When that is not the case the URL parser can be used directly.

To parse a URL url, relative to either a document or environment settings object, the user agent must use the following steps. Parsing
a URL either results in failure or a resulting URL string p86 and resulting URL record p86 .

1. Let encoding be document's character encoding, if document was given, and environment settings object's API URL
character encoding p868 otherwise.

2. Let baseURL be document's base URL p86 , if document was given, and environment settings object's API base URL p868
otherwise.

3. Let urlRecord be the result of applying the URL parser to url, with baseURL and encoding.

4. If urlRecord is failure, then return failure.

5. Let urlString be the result of applying the URL serializer to urlRecord.

6. Return urlString as the resulting URL string and urlRecord as the resulting URL record.

2.4.3 Dynamic changes to base URLs § p86

When a document's document base URL p86 changes, all elements in that document are affected by a base URL change p55 .
86
The following are base URL change steps p55 , which run when an element is affected by a base URL change p55 (as defined by the DOM
specification):

p273
↪ If the element creates a hyperlink
If the URL identified by the hyperlink is being shown to the user, or if any data derived from that URL is affecting the display,
then the href p274 attribute should be reparsed p86 relative to the element's node document and the UI updated appropriately.

Example
For example, the CSS :link p700 /:visited p700 pseudo-classes might have been affected.

If the hyperlink has a ping p274 attribute and its URL(s) are being shown to the user, then the ping p274 attribute's tokens should
be reparsed p86 relative to the element's node document and the UI updated appropriately.

p239
↪ If the element is a q , blockquote p210 , ins p298 , or del p300 element with a cite attribute
If the URL identified by the cite attribute is being shown to the user, or if any data derived from that URL is affecting the
display, then the URL should be reparsed p86 relative to the element's node document and the UI updated appropriately.

↪ Otherwise
The element is not directly affected.

Example
For instance, changing the base URL doesn't affect the image displayed by img p307 elements, although subsequent accesses
of the src p309 IDL attribute from script will return a new absolute URL that might no longer correspond to the image being
shown.

2.5 Fetching resources § p87 ⋰ Spec bug

2.5.1 Terminology § p87

A response whose type is "basic", "cors", or "default" is CORS-same-origin. [FETCH] p1219

A response whose type is "opaque" or "opaqueredirect" is CORS-cross-origin.

A response's unsafe response is its internal response if it has one, and the response itself otherwise.

To create a potential-CORS request, given a url, destination, corsAttributeState, and an optional same-origin fallback flag, run
these steps:

1. Let mode be "no-cors" if corsAttributeState is No CORS p88 , and "cors" otherwise.

2. If same-origin fallback flag is set and mode is "no-cors", set mode to "same-origin".

3. Let credentialsMode be "include".

4. If corsAttributeState is Anonymous p88 , set credentialsMode to "same-origin".

5. Let request be a new request whose url is url, destination is destination, mode is mode, credentials mode is credentialsMode,
and whose use-URL-credentials flag is set.

2.5.2 Determining the type of a resource § p87

The Content-Type metadata of a resource must be obtained and interpreted in a manner consistent with the requirements of the
WHATWG MIME Sniffing standard. [MIMESNIFF] p1220

The computed MIME type of a resource must be found in a manner consistent with the requirements given in the WHATWG MIME
Sniffing standard. [MIMESNIFF] p1220

The rules for sniffing images specifically, the rules for distinguishing if a resource is text or binary, and the rules for
sniffing audio and video specifically are also defined in the WHATWG MIME Sniffing standard. These rules return a MIME type as

87
 their result. [MIMESNIFF] p1220

⚠Warning!
It is imperative that the rules in the WHATWG MIME Sniffing standard be followed exactly. When a user agent uses
different heuristics for content type detection than the server expects, security problems can occur. For more
details, see the WHATWG MIME Sniffing standard. [MIMESNIFF] p1220

2.5.3 Extracting character encodings from meta p158 elements §

p88

The algorithm for extracting a character encoding from a meta element, given a string s, is as follows. It either returns a
character encoding or nothing.

1. Let position be a pointer into s, initially pointing at the start of the string.

2. Loop: Find the first seven characters in s after position that are an ASCII case-insensitive match for the word "charset". If no
such match is found, return nothing.

3. Skip any ASCII whitespace that immediately follow the word "charset" (there might not be any).

4. If the next character is not a U+003D EQUALS SIGN (=), then move position to point just before that next character, and
jump back to the step labeled loop.

5. Skip any ASCII whitespace that immediately follow the equals sign (there might not be any).

6. Process the next character as follows:

↪ If it is a U+0022 QUOTATION MARK character (") and there is a later U+0022 QUOTATION MARK character
(") in s
↪ If it is a U+0027 APOSTROPHE character (') and there is a later U+0027 APOSTROPHE character (') in s
Return the result of getting an encoding from the substring that is between this character and the next earliest
occurrence of this character.

↪ If it is an unmatched U+0022 QUOTATION MARK character (")

↪ If it is an unmatched U+0027 APOSTROPHE character (')
↪ If there is no next character
Return nothing.

↪ Otherwise
Return the result of getting an encoding from the substring that consists of this character up to but not including the
first ASCII whitespace or U+003B SEMICOLON character (;), or the end of s, whichever comes first.

Note
This algorithm is distinct from those in the HTTP specification (for example, HTTP doesn't allow the use of single quotes and
requires supporting a backslash-escape mechanism that is not supported by this algorithm). While the algorithm is used in
contexts that, historically, were related to HTTP, the syntax as supported by implementations diverged some time ago. [HTTP] p1219

2.5.4 CORS settings attributes § p88

A CORS settings attribute is an enumerated attribute p65 . The following table lists the keywords and states for the attribute — the
keywords in the left column map to the states in the cell in the second column on the same row as the keyword.

Keyword State Brief description

anonymous Anonymous Requests for the element will have their mode set to "cors" and their credentials mode set to "same-origin".
use-credentials Use Credentials Requests for the element will have their mode set to "cors" and their credentials mode set to "include".

The empty string is also a valid keyword, and maps to the Anonymous p88 state. The attribute's invalid value default p65 is the
Anonymous p88 state. For the purposes of reflection p90 , the canonical case for the Anonymous p88 state is the anonymous p88 keyword. The
missing value default p65 , used when the attribute is omitted, is the No CORS state.

The majority of fetches governed by CORS settings attributes p88 will be done via the create a potential-CORS request p87 algorithm.
88
For module scripts p867 , certain CORS settings attributes p88 have been repurposed to have a slightly different meaning, wherein they
only impact the request's credentials mode (since the mode is always "cors"). To perform this translation, we define the module
script credentials mode for a given CORS settings attribute p88 to be determined by switching on the attribute's state:

p88
↪ No CORS
"omit"
p88
↪ Anonymous
"same-origin"
p88
↪ Use Credentials
"include"

2.5.5 Referrer policy attributes § p89

A referrer policy attribute is an enumerated attribute p65 . Each referrer policy, including the empty string, is a keyword for this
attribute, mapping to a state of the same name.

The attribute's invalid value default p65 and missing value default p65 are both the empty string state.

The impact of these states on the processing model of various fetches is defined in more detail throughout this specification, in the
WHATWG Fetch standard, and in Referrer Policy. [FETCH] p1219 [REFERRERPOLICY] p1221

Note

Several signals can contribute to which processing model is used for a given fetch; a referrer policy attribute p89 is only one of
them. In general, the order in which these signals are processed are:

1. First, the presence of a noreferrer p292 link type;

2. Then, the value of a referrer policy attribute p89 ;

3. Then, the presence of any meta p158 element with name p159 attribute set to referrer p161 .

4. Finally, the `Referrer-Policy` HTTP header.

2.5.6 Nonce attributes § p89

A nonce content attribute represents a cryptographic nonce ("number used once") which can be used by Content Security Policy to
determine whether or not a given fetch will be allowed to proceed. The value is text. [CSP] p1217

Elements that have a nonce p89 content attribute ensure that the crytographic nonce is only exposed to script (and not to side-channels
like CSS attribute selectors) by extracting the value from the content attribute, moving it into an internal slot named
[[CryptographicNonce]], and exposing it to script via the HTMLOrSVGElement p121 interface mixin. Unless otherwise specified, the
slot's value is the empty string.

For web developers (non-normative)

element . nonce
Returns the value of the element's [[CryptographicNonce]] p89 internal slot.
Can be set, to update that slot's value.

The nonce IDL attribute must, on getting, return the value of this element's [[CryptographicNonce]] p89 ; and on setting, set this
element's [[CryptographicNonce]] p89 to the given value.

Whenever an element including HTMLOrSVGElement p121 has its nonce p89 attribute is set or changed, set this element's
[[CryptographicNonce]] p89 to the given value.

89
 Whenever an element including HTMLOrSVGElement p121 becomes browsing-context connected p44 , the user agent must execute the
following steps on the element:

1. Let CSP list be element's shadow-including root's CSP list p111 .

2. If CSP list contains a header-delivered Content Security Policy, and element has a nonce p89 content attribute attr whose value
is not the empty string, then:

1. Set an attribute value for element using "nonce p89 " and the empty string.

Note
As each Document p110 's CSP list p111 is append-only, user agents can optimize away the contains a header-delivered Content Security
Policy check by, for example, holding a flag on the Document p110 , set during Document initialization p828 .

The cloning steps for elements that include HTMLOrSVGElement p121 must set the [[CryptographicNonce]] p89 slot on the copy to the value
of the slot on the element being cloned.

2.6 Common DOM interfaces § p90

2.6.1 Reflecting content attributes in IDL attributes § p90

Some IDL attributes are defined to reflect a particular content attribute. This means that on getting, the IDL attribute returns the
current value of the content attribute, and on setting, the IDL attribute changes the value of the content attribute to the given value.

In general, on getting, if the content attribute is not present, the IDL attribute must act as if the content attribute's value is the empty
string; and on setting, if the content attribute is not present, it must first be added.

If a reflecting IDL attribute is a USVString attribute whose content attribute is defined to contain a URL, then on getting, if the content
attribute is absent, the IDL attribute must return the empty string. Otherwise, the IDL attribute must parse p86 the value of the content
attribute relative to the element's node document and if that is successful, return the resulting URL string p86 . If parsing fails, then the
value of the content attribute must be returned instead, converted to a USVString. On setting, the content attribute must be set to the
specified new value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute is a DOMString attribute whose content attribute is an enumerated attribute p65 , and the IDL attribute is
limited to only known values, then, on getting, the IDL attribute must return the conforming value associated with the state the
attribute is in (in its canonical case), if any, or the empty string if the attribute is in a state that has no associated keyword value or if
the attribute is not in a defined state (e.g. the attribute is missing and there is no missing value default p65 ). On setting, the content
attribute must be set to the specified new value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute is a nullable DOMString attribute whose content attribute is an enumerated attribute p65 , then, on getting, if
the corresponding content attribute is in its missing value default then the IDL attribute must return null, otherwise, the IDL attribute
must return the conforming value associated with the state the attribute is in (in its canonical case). On setting, if the new value is null,
the content attribute must be removed, and otherwise, the content attribute must be set to the specified new value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute is a DOMString or USVString attribute but doesn't fall into any of the above categories, then the getting and
setting must be done in a transparent, case-preserving manner.

If a reflecting IDL attribute is a boolean attribute, then on getting the IDL attribute must return true if the content attribute is set, and
false if it is absent. On setting, the content attribute must be removed if the IDL attribute is set to false, and must be set to the empty
string if the IDL attribute is set to true. (This corresponds to the rules for boolean content attributes p65 .)

If a reflecting IDL attribute has a signed integer type (long) then, on getting, the content attribute must be parsed according to the
rules for parsing signed integers p66 , and if that is successful, and the value is in the range of the IDL attribute's type, the resulting
value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails or returns an out of range value, or if the attribute is absent, then the default
value must be returned instead, or 0 if there is no default value. On setting, the given value must be converted to the shortest possible
string representing the number as a valid integer p66 and then that string must be used as the new content attribute value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute has a signed integer type (long) that is limited to only non-negative numbers then, on getting, the
content attribute must be parsed according to the rules for parsing non-negative integers p66 , and if that is successful, and the value is
in the range of the IDL attribute's type, the resulting value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails or returns an out of range
value, or if the attribute is absent, the default value must be returned instead, or −1 if there is no default value. On setting, if the value
is negative, the user agent must throw an "IndexSizeError" DOMException. Otherwise, the given value must be converted to the
90
shortest possible string representing the number as a valid non-negative integer p66 and then that string must be used as the new
content attribute value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute has an unsigned integer type (unsigned long) then, on getting, the content attribute must be parsed
according to the rules for parsing non-negative integers p66 , and if that is successful, and the value is in the range 0 to 2147483647
inclusive, the resulting value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails or returns an out of range value, or if the attribute is
absent, the default value must be returned instead, or 0 if there is no default value. On setting, first, if the new value is in the range 0
to 2147483647, then let n be the new value, otherwise let n be the default value, or 0 if there is no default value; then, n must be
converted to the shortest possible string representing the number as a valid non-negative integer p66 and that string must be used as
the new content attribute value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute has an unsigned integer type (unsigned long) that is limited to only non-negative numbers greater
than zero, then the behavior is similar to the previous case, but zero is not allowed. On getting, the content attribute must first be
parsed according to the rules for parsing non-negative integers p66 , and if that is successful, and the value is in the range 1 to
2147483647 inclusive, the resulting value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails or returns an out of range value, or if the
attribute is absent, the default value must be returned instead, or 1 if there is no default value. On setting, if the value is zero, the user
agent must throw an "IndexSizeError" DOMException. Otherwise, first, if the new value is in the range 1 to 2147483647, then let n be
the new value, otherwise let n be the default value, or 1 if there is no default value; then, n must be converted to the shortest possible
string representing the number as a valid non-negative integer p66 and that string must be used as the new content attribute value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute has an unsigned integer type (unsigned long) that is limited to only non-negative numbers greater
than zero with fallback, then the behavior is similar to the previous case, but disallowed values are converted to the default value.
On getting, the content attribute must first be parsed according to the rules for parsing non-negative integers p66 , and if that is
successful, and the value is in the range 1 to 2147483647 inclusive, the resulting value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails
or returns an out of range value, or if the attribute is absent, the default value must be returned instead. On setting, first, if the new
value is in the range 1 to 2147483647, then let n be the new value, otherwise let n be the default value; then, n must be converted to
the shortest possible string representing the number as a valid non-negative integer p66 and that string must be used as the new
content attribute value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute has an unsigned integer type (unsigned long) that is clamped to the range [min, max], then on getting,
the content attribute must first be parsed according to the rules for parsing non-negative integers p66 , and if that is successful, and the
value is between min and max inclusive, the resulting value must be returned. If it fails, the default value must be returned. If it
succeeds but the value is less than min, min must be returned. If it succeeds but the value is greater than max, max must be returned.
On setting, it behaves the same as setting a regular reflected unsigned integer.

If a reflecting IDL attribute has a floating-point number type (double or unrestricted double), then, on getting, the content attribute
must be parsed according to the rules for parsing floating-point number values p67 , and if that is successful, the resulting value must be
returned. If, on the other hand, it fails, or if the attribute is absent, the default value must be returned instead, or 0.0 if there is no
default value. On setting, the given value must be converted to the best representation of the number as a floating-point number p67
and then that string must be used as the new content attribute value.

If a reflecting IDL attribute has a floating-point number type (double or unrestricted double) that is limited to numbers greater
than zero, then the behavior is similar to the previous case, but zero and negative values are not allowed. On getting, the content
attribute must be parsed according to the rules for parsing floating-point number values p67 , and if that is successful and the value is
greater than 0.0, the resulting value must be returned. If, on the other hand, it fails or returns an out of range value, or if the attribute
is absent, the default value must be returned instead, or 0.0 if there is no default value. On setting, if the value is less than or equal to
zero, then the value must be ignored. Otherwise, the given value must be converted to the best representation of the number as a
floating-point number p67 and then that string must be used as the new content attribute value.

Note
The values Infinity and Not-a-Number (NaN) values throw an exception on setting, as defined in the Web IDL specification.
[WEBIDL] p1223

If a reflecting IDL attribute has the type DOMTokenList, then on getting it must return a DOMTokenList object whose associated
element is the element in question and whose associated attribute's local name is the name of the attribute in question.

2.6.2 Collections § p91

The HTMLFormControlsCollection p94 and HTMLOptionsCollection p95 interfaces are collections derived from the HTMLCollection
interface. The HTMLAllCollection p92 interface is a collection, but is not so derived.

91
 2.6.2.1 The HTMLAllCollection p92 interface §
p92

The HTMLAllCollection p92 interface is used for the legacy document.all p1183 attribute. It operates similarly to HTMLCollection; the
main differences are that it allows a staggering variety of different (ab)uses of its methods to all end up returning something, and that
it can be called as a function as an alternative to property access.

Note
All HTMLAllCollection p92 objects are rooted at a Document p110 and have a filter that matches all elements, so the elements
represented by the collection of an HTMLAllCollection p92 object consist of all the descendant elements of the root Document p110 .

Objects that implement the HTMLAllCollection p92 interface are legacy platform objects with an additonal [[Call]] internal method
described in the section below p94 . They also have an [[IsHTMLDDA]] internal slot.

Note

Objects that implement the HTMLAllCollection p92 interface have several unusual behaviors, due of the fact that they have an
[[IsHTMLDDA]] internal slot:

• The ToBoolean abstract operation in JavaScript returns false when given objects implementing the HTMLAllCollection p92
interface.

• The Abstract Equality Comparison algorithm, when given objects implementing the HTMLAllCollection p92 interface,
returns true when compared to the undefined and null values. (Comparisons using the Strict Equality Comparison
algorithm, and Abstract Equality comparisons to other values such as strings or objects, are unaffected.)

• The typeof operator in JavaScript returns the string "undefined" when applied to objects implementing the
HTMLAllCollection p92 interface.

These special behaviors are motivated by a desire for compatibility with two classes of legacy content: one that uses the presence
of document.all p1183 as a way to detect legacy user agents, and one that only supports those legacy user agents and uses the
document.all p1183 object without testing for its presence first. [JAVASCRIPT] p1220

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
LegacyUnenumerableNamedProperties]
interface HTMLAllCollection {
readonly attribute unsigned long length;
getter Element (unsigned long index);
getter (HTMLCollection or Element)? namedItem(DOMString name);
(HTMLCollection or Element)? item(optional DOMString nameOrIndex);

// Note: HTMLAllCollection objects have a custom [[Call]] internal method and an [[IsHTMLDDA]]
internal slot.
};

For web developers (non-normative)

collection . length p93

Returns the number of elements in the collection.

element = collection . item p93 (index)

element = collection(index)
element = collection[index]
Returns the item with index index from the collection (determined by tree order).

92
 element = collection . item p93 (name)
collection = collection . item p93 (name)
element = collection . namedItem p93 (name)
collection = collection . namedItem p93 (name)
element = collection(name)
collection = collection(name)
element = collection[name]
collection = collection[name]
Returns the item with ID or name name from the collection.
If there are multiple matching items, then an HTMLCollection object containing all those elements is returned.
Only button p518 , form p470 , iframe p347 , input p476 , map p426 , meta p158 , object p358 , select p520 , and textarea p530 elements can have
a name for the purpose of this method; their name is given by the value of their name attribute.

The object's supported property indices are as defined for HTMLCollection objects.

The supported property names consist of the non-empty values of all the id p133 attributes of all the elements represented by the
collection, and the non-empty values of all the name attributes of all the "all"-named elements p93 represented by the collection, in tree
order, ignoring later duplicates, with the id p133 of an element preceding its name if it contributes both, they differ from each other, and
neither is the duplicate of an earlier entry.

On getting, the length attribute must return the number of nodes represented by the collection.

The indexed property getter must return the result of getting the "all"-indexed element p93 from this HTMLAllCollection p92 given the
passed index.

The namedItem(name) method must return the result of getting the "all"-named element(s) p93 from this HTMLAllCollection p92 given
name.

The item(nameOrIndex) method must perform the following steps:

1. If nameOrIndex was not provided, return null.

2. Return the result of getting the "all"-indexed or named element(s) p93 from this HTMLAllCollection p92 , given nameOrIndex.

The following elements are "all"-named elements: a p230 , button p518 , embed p354 , form p470 , frame p1174 , frameset p1173 , iframe p347 , img p307 ,
input p476 , map p426 , meta p158 , object p358 , select p520 , and textarea p530

To get the "all"-indexed element from an HTMLAllCollection p92 collection given an index index, return the indexth element in
collection, or null if there is no such indexth element.

To get the "all"-named element(s) from an HTMLAllCollection p92 collection given a name name, perform the following steps:

1. If name is the empty string, return null.

2. Let subCollection be an HTMLCollection object rooted at the same Document p110 as collection, whose filter matches only
elements that are either:

◦ "all"-named elements p93 with a name attribute equal to name, or,

◦ elements with an ID equal to name.

3. If there is exactly one element in subCollection, then return that element.

4. Otherwise, if subCollection is empty, return null.

5. Otherwise, return subCollection.

To get the "all"-indexed or named element(s) from an HTMLAllCollection p92 collection given nameOrIndex:

93
 1. If nameOrIndex, converted to a JavaScript String value, is an array index property name, return the result of getting the "all"-
indexed element p93 from this HTMLAllCollection p92 given the number represented by nameOrIndex.

2. Return the result of getting the "all"-named element(s) p93 from this HTMLAllCollection p92 given nameOrIndex.

2.6.2.1.1 [[Call]] ( thisArgument, argumentsList ) § p94

1. If argumentsList's size is zero, or if argumentsList[0] is undefined, return null.

2. Let nameOrIndex be the result of converting argumentsList[0] to a DOMString.

3. Let result be the result of getting the "all"-indexed or named element(s) p93 from this HTMLAllCollection p92 given
nameOrIndex.

4. Return the result of converting result to an ECMAScript value.

Note
The thisArgument is ignored, and thus code such as Function.prototype.call.call(document.all, null, "x") will still search
for elements. (document.all.call does not exist, since document.all does not inherit from Function.prototype.)

2.6.2.2 The HTMLFormControlsCollection p94 interface §

p94

The HTMLFormControlsCollection p94 interface is used for collections of listed elements p470 in form p470 elements.

IDL
[Exposed=Window]
interface HTMLFormControlsCollection : HTMLCollection {
// inherits length and item()
getter (RadioNodeList or Element)? namedItem(DOMString name); // shadows inherited namedItem()
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface RadioNodeList : NodeList {
attribute DOMString value;
};

For web developers (non-normative)

collection . length
Returns the number of elements in the collection.

element = collection . item(index)

element = collection[index]
Returns the item with index index from the collection. The items are sorted in tree order.

element = collection . namedItem p95 (name)

radioNodeList = collection . namedItem p95 (name)
element = collection[name]
radioNodeList = collection[name]
Returns the item with ID or name p549 name from the collection.
If there are multiple matching items, then a RadioNodeList p94 object containing all those elements is returned.

radioNodeList . value [ = value ]

Returns the value of the first checked radio button represented by the object.
Can be set, to check the first radio button with the given value represented by the object.

The object's supported property indices are as defined for HTMLCollection objects.

94
The supported property names consist of the non-empty values of all the id p133 and name p549 attributes of all the elements represented
by the collection, in tree order, ignoring later duplicates, with the id p133 of an element preceding its name p549 if it contributes both, they
differ from each other, and neither is the duplicate of an earlier entry.

The namedItem(name) method must act according to the following algorithm:

1. If name is the empty string, return null and stop the algorithm.

2. If, at the time the method is called, there is exactly one node in the collection that has either an id p133 attribute or a name p549
attribute equal to name, then return that node and stop the algorithm.

3. Otherwise, if there are no nodes in the collection that have either an id p133 attribute or a name p549 attribute equal to name,
then return null and stop the algorithm.

4. Otherwise, create a new RadioNodeList p94 object representing a live p45 view of the HTMLFormControlsCollection p94 object,
further filtered so that the only nodes in the RadioNodeList p94 object are those that have either an id p133 attribute or a
name p549 attribute equal to name. The nodes in the RadioNodeList p94 object must be sorted in tree order.

5. Return that RadioNodeList p94 object.

Members of the RadioNodeList p94 interface inherited from the NodeList interface must behave as they would on a NodeList object.

The value IDL attribute on the RadioNodeList p94 object, on getting, must return the value returned by running the following steps:

1. Let element be the first element in tree order represented by the RadioNodeList p94 object that is an input p476 element
whose type p478 attribute is in the Radio Button p497 state and whose checkedness p547 is true. Otherwise, let it be null.

2. If element is null, return the empty string.

3. If element is an element with no value p480 attribute, return the string "on".

4. Otherwise, return the value of element's value p480 attribute.

On setting, the value p95 IDL attribute must run the following steps:

1. If the new value is the string "on": let element be the first element in tree order represented by the RadioNodeList p94 object
that is an input p476 element whose type p478 attribute is in the Radio Button p497 state and whose value p480 content attribute is
either absent, or present and equal to the new value, if any. If no such element exists, then instead let element be null.

Otherwise: let element be the first element in tree order represented by the RadioNodeList p94 object that is an input p476
element whose type p478 attribute is in the Radio Button p497 state and whose value p480 content attribute is present and equal
to the new value, if any. If no such element exists, then instead let element be null.

2. If element is not null, then set its checkedness p547 to true.

2.6.2.3 The HTMLOptionsCollection p95 interface §

p95

The HTMLOptionsCollection p95 interface is used for collections of option p528 elements. It is always rooted on a select p520 element
and has attributes and methods that manipulate that element's descendants.

IDL
[Exposed=Window]
interface HTMLOptionsCollection : HTMLCollection {
// inherits item(), namedItem()
[CEReactions] attribute unsigned long length; // shadows inherited length
[CEReactions] setter void (unsigned long index, HTMLOptionElement? option);
[CEReactions] void add((HTMLOptionElement or HTMLOptGroupElement) element, optional (HTMLElement or
long)? before = null);
[CEReactions] void remove(long index);
attribute long selectedIndex;
};

For web developers (non-normative)

95
 collection . length p96 [ = value ]
Returns the number of elements in the collection.
When set to a smaller number, truncates the number of option p528 elements in the corresponding container.
When set to a greater number, adds new blank option p528 elements to that container.

element = collection . item(index)

element = collection[index]
Returns the item with index index from the collection. The items are sorted in tree order.

collection[index] = element
When index is a greater number than the number of items in the collection, adds new blank option p528 elements in the
corresponding container.
When set to null, removes the item at index index from the collection.
When set to an option p528 element, adds or replaces it at index index from the collection.

element = collection . namedItem(name)

element = collection[name]
Returns the item with ID or name p1167 name from the collection.
If there are multiple matching items, then the first is returned.

collection . add p97 (element [, before ] )

Inserts element before the node given by before.
The before argument can be a number, in which case element is inserted before the item with that number, or an element
from the collection, in which case element is inserted before that element.
If before is omitted, null, or a number out of range, then element will be added at the end of the list.
This method will throw a "HierarchyRequestError" DOMException if element is an ancestor of the element into which it is to
be inserted.

collection . remove p97 (index)

Removes the item with index index from the collection.

collection . selectedIndex p97 [ = value ]

Returns the index of the first selected item, if any, or −1 if there is no selected item.
Can be set, to change the selection.

The object's supported property indices are as defined for HTMLCollection objects.

On getting, the length attribute must return the number of nodes represented by the collection.

On setting, the behavior depends on whether the new value is equal to, greater than, or less than the number of nodes represented by
the collection at that time. If the number is the same, then setting the attribute must do nothing. If the new value is greater, then n
new option p528 elements with no attributes and no child nodes must be appended to the select p520 element on which the
HTMLOptionsCollection p95 is rooted, where n is the difference between the two numbers (new value minus old value). Mutation
events must be fired as if a DocumentFragment containing the new option p528 elements had been inserted. If the new value is lower,
then the last n nodes in the collection must be removed from their parent nodes, where n is the difference between the two numbers
(old value minus new value).

Note
Setting length p96 never removes or adds any optgroup p526 elements, and never adds new children to existing optgroup p526
elements (though it can remove children from them).

The supported property names consist of the non-empty values of all the id p133 and name p1167 attributes of all the elements represented
by the collection, in tree order, ignoring later duplicates, with the id p133 of an element preceding its name p1167 if it contributes both, they
differ from each other, and neither is the duplicate of an earlier entry.

When the user agent is to set the value of a new indexed property or set the value of an existing indexed property for a given property
96
index index to a new value value, it must run the following algorithm:

1. If value is null, invoke the steps for the remove p97 method with index as the argument, and return.

2. Let length be the number of nodes represented by the collection.

3. Let n be index minus length.

4. If n is greater than zero, then append a DocumentFragment consisting of n-1 new option p528 elements with no attributes and
no child nodes to the select p520 element on which the HTMLOptionsCollection p95 is rooted.

5. If n is greater than or equal to zero, append value to the select p520 element. Otherwise, replace the indexth element in the
collection by value.

The add(element, before) method must act according to the following algorithm:

1. If element is an ancestor of the select p520 element on which the HTMLOptionsCollection p95 is rooted, then throw a
"HierarchyRequestError" DOMException.

2. If before is an element, but that element isn't a descendant of the select p520 element on which the
HTMLOptionsCollection p95 is rooted, then throw a "NotFoundError" DOMException.

3. If element and before are the same element, then return.

4. If before is a node, then let reference be that node. Otherwise, if before is an integer, and there is a beforeth node in the
collection, let reference be that node. Otherwise, let reference be null.

5. If reference is not null, let parent be the parent node of reference. Otherwise, let parent be the select p520 element on which
the HTMLOptionsCollection p95 is rooted.

6. Pre-insert element into parent node before reference.

The remove(index) method must act according to the following algorithm:

1. If the number of nodes represented by the collection is zero, return.

2. If index is not a number greater than or equal to 0 and less than the number of nodes represented by the collection, return.

3. Let element be the indexth element in the collection.

4. Remove element from its parent node.

The selectedIndex IDL attribute must act like the identically named attribute on the select p520 element on which the
HTMLOptionsCollection p95 is rooted

2.6.3 The DOMStringList p97 interface §

p97

The DOMStringList p97 interface is a non-fashionable retro way of representing a list of strings.

IDL
[Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface DOMStringList {
readonly attribute unsigned long length;
getter DOMString? item(unsigned long index);
boolean contains(DOMString string);
};

⚠Warning!
New APIs must use sequence<DOMString> or equivalent rather than DOMStringList p97 .

For web developers (non-normative)

97
 strings . length p98
Returns the number of strings in strings.

strings[index]
strings . item p98 (index)
Returns the string with index index from strings.

strings . contains p98 (string)

Returns true if strings contains string, and false otherwise.

Each DOMStringList p97 object has an associated list.

The supported property indices for a DOMStringList p97 object are the numbers zero to the associated list's size minus one. If its
associated list is empty, it has no supported property indices.

The length attribute's getter must return this DOMStringList p97 object's associated list's size.

The item(index) method, when invoked, must return the indexth item in this DOMStringList p97 object's associated list, or null if index
plus one is greater than this DOMStringList p97 object's associated list's size.

The contains(string) method, when invoked, must return true if this DOMStringList p97 object's associated list contains string, and
false otherwise.

2.6.4 Garbage collection § p98

There is an implied strong reference from any IDL attribute that returns a pre-existing object to that object.

Example

For example, the window.document p792 attribute means that there is a strong reference from a Window p790 object to its Document p110
object. Similarly, there is always a strong reference from a Document p110 to any descendant nodes, and from any node to its node
document.

2.7 Safe passing of structured data § p98

This section uses the terminology and typographic conventions from the JavaScript specification. [JAVASCRIPT] p1220

2.7.1 Serializable objects § p98

Serializable objects p98 support being serialized, and later deserialized, in a way that is independent of any given JavaScript Realm. This
allows them to be stored on disk and later restored, or cloned across document and worker boundaries (including across documents of
different origins p802 or in different event loops p892 ).

Not all objects are serializable objects p98 , and not all aspects of objects that are serializable objects p98 are necessarily preserved when
they are serialized.

Platform objects can be serializable objects p98 if they implement only interfaces decorated with the [Serializable] IDL extended
attribute. Such interfaces must also define the following algorithms:

serialization steps, taking a platform object value, a Record serialized, and a boolean forStorage
A set of steps that serializes the data in value into fields of serialized. The resulting data serialized into serialized must be
independent of any JavaScript Realm.
98
 These steps may throw an exception if serialization is not possible.

These steps may perform a sub-serialization p103 to serialize nested data structures. They should not call StructuredSerialize p104
directly, as doing so will omit the important memory argument.

The introduction of these steps should omit mention of the forStorage argument if it is not relevant to the algorithm.

deserialization steps, taking a Record serialized and a platform object value

A set of steps that deserializes the data in serialized, using it to set up value as appropriate. value will be a newly-created instance
of the platform object type in question, with none of its internal data set up; setting that up is the job of these steps.

These steps may throw an exception if deserialization is not possible.

These steps may perform a sub-deserialization p106 to deserialize nested data structures. They should not call
StructuredDeserialize p104 directly, as doing so will omit the important targetRealm and memory arguments.

It is up to the definition of individual platform objects to determine what data is serialized and deserialized by these steps. Typically the
steps are very symmetric.

The [Serializable] p98 extended attribute must take no arguments, and must not appear on anything other than an interface. It must
appear only once on an interface. It must not be used on a callback interface. If it appears on a partial interface or an interface that is
really a mixin, then it must also appear on the original or mixed-in-to interface, and any supplied serialization steps p98 and
deserialization steps p99 for the partial interface or mixin should be understood as being appended to those of the original or mixed-in-
to interface.

Example

Let's say we were defining a platform object Person, which had associated with it two pieces of associated data:

• a name value, which is a string;

• and a best friend value, which is either another Person instance or null

We could then define Person instances to be serializable objects p98 by annotating the Person interface with the [Serializable] p98
extended attribute, and defining the following accompanying algorithms:

serialization steps p98

1. Set serialized.[[Name]] to value's associated name value.

2. Let serializedBestFriend be the sub-serialization p103 of value's associated best friend value.

3. Set serialized.[[BestFriend]] to serializedBestFriend.

deserialization steps p99

1. Set value's associated name value to serialized.[[Name]].

2. Let deserializedBestFriend be the sub-deserialization p106 of serialized.[[BestFriend]].

3. Set value's associated best friend value to deserializedBestFriend.

Objects defined in the JavaScript specification are handled by the StructuredSerialize p104 abstract operation directly.

Note
Originally, this specification defined the concept of "cloneable objects", which could be cloned from one JavaScript Realm to
another. However, to better specify the behavior of certain more complex situations, the model was updated to make the
serialization and deserialization explicit.

2.7.2 Transferable objects § p99

Transferable objects p99 support being transferred across event loops p892 . Transferring is effectively recreating the object while sharing a
reference to the underlying data and then detaching the object being transferred. This is useful to transfer ownership of expensive
resources. Not all objects are transferable objects p99 and not all aspects of objects that are transferable objects p99 are necessarily

99
 preserved when transferred.

Note
Transferring is an irreversible and non-idempotent operation. Once an object has been transferred, it cannot be transferred, or
indeed used, again.

Platform objects can be transferable objects p99 if they implement only interfaces decorated with the [Transferable] IDL extended
attribute. Such interfaces must also define the following algorithms:

transfer steps, taking a platform object value and a Record dataHolder

A set of steps that transfers the data in value into fields of dataHolder. The resulting data held in dataHolder must be independent
of any JavaScript Realm.

These steps may throw an exception if transferral is not possible.

transfer-receiving steps, taking a Record dataHolder and a platform object value

A set of steps that receives the data in dataHolder, using it to set up value as appropriate. value will be a newly-created instance of
the platform object type in question, with none of its internal data set up; setting that up is the job of these steps.

These steps may throw an exception if it is not possible to receive the transfer.

It is up to the definition of individual platform objects to determine what data is transferred by these steps. Typically the steps are very
symmetric.

The [Transferable] p100 extended attribute must take no arguments, and must not appear on anything other than an interface. It must
appear only once on an interface. It must not be used on a callback interface. If it appears on a partial interface or an interface that is
really a mixin, then it must also appear on the original or mixed-in-to interface, and any supplied serialization steps p98 and
deserialization steps p99 for the partial interface or mixin should be understood as being appended to those of the original or mixed-in-
to interface.

Platform objects that are transferable objects p99 have a [[Detached]] internal slot. This is used to ensure that once a platform object
has been transferred, it cannot be transferred again.

Objects defined in the JavaScript specification are handled by the StructuredSerializeWithTransfer p106 abstract operation directly.

2.7.3 StructuredSerializeInternal ( value, forStorage [ , memory ] ) § p10

0

p100
The StructuredSerializeInternal abstract operation takes as input a JavaScript value value and serializes it to a Realm-independent
form, represented here as a Record. This serialized form has all the information necessary to later deserialize into a new JavaScript
value in a different Realm.

This process can throw an exception, for example when trying to serialize un-serializable objects.

1. If memory was not supplied, let memory be an empty map.

Note
The purpose of the memory map is to avoid serializing objects twice. This ends up preserving cycles and the identity of
duplicate objects in graphs.

2. If memory[value] exists, then return memory[value].

3. Let deep be false.

4. If Type(value) is Undefined, Null, Boolean, Number, BigInt, or String, then return { [[Type]]: "primitive", [[Value]]: value }.
[JSBIGINT] p1220

5. If Type(value) is Symbol, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

6. Let serialized be an uninitialized value.

7. If value has a [[BooleanData]] internal slot, then set serialized to { [[Type]]: "Boolean", [[BooleanData]]:
value.[[BooleanData]] }.

100
 8. Otherwise, if value has a [[NumberData]] internal slot, then set serialized to { [[Type]]: "Number", [[NumberData]]:
value.[[NumberData]] }.

9. Otherwise, if value has a [[BigIntData]] internal slot, then set serialized to { [[Type]]: "BigInt", [[BigIntData]]:
value.[[BigIntData]] }. [JSBIGINT] p1220

10. Otherwise, if value has a [[StringData]] internal slot, then set serialized to { [[Type]]: "String", [[StringData]]:
value.[[StringData]] }.

11. Otherwise, if value has a [[DateValue]] internal slot, then set serialized to { [[Type]]: "Date", [[DateValue]]:
value.[[DateValue]] }.

12. Otherwise, if value has a [[RegExpMatcher]] internal slot, then set serialized to { [[Type]]: "RegExp", [[RegExpMatcher]]:
value.[[RegExpMatcher]], [[OriginalSource]]: value.[[OriginalSource]], [[OriginalFlags]]: value.[[OriginalFlags]] }.

13. Otherwise, if value has an [[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot, then:

1. Let size be value.[[ArrayBufferByteLength]].

2. If ! IsSharedArrayBuffer(value) is true, then:

1. If forStorage is true, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

2. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: "SharedArrayBuffer", [[ArrayBufferData]]: value.[[ArrayBufferData]],

[[ArrayBufferByteLength]]: size, [[AgentCluster]]: the current Realm Record's corresponding agent cluster
}.

3. Otherwise:

1. If ! IsDetachedBuffer(value) is true, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

2. Let dataCopy be ? CreateByteDataBlock(size).

Note
This can throw a RangeError exception upon allocation failure.

3. Perform ! CopyDataBlockBytes(dataCopy, 0, value.[[ArrayBufferData]], 0, size).

4. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: "ArrayBuffer", [[ArrayBufferData]]: dataCopy, [[ArrayBufferByteLength]]: size

}.

14. Otherwise, if value has a [[ViewedArrayBuffer]] internal slot, then:

1. Let buffer be the value of value's [[ViewedArrayBuffer]] internal slot.

2. Let bufferSerialized be ? StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (buffer, forStorage, memory).

3. Assert: bufferSerialized.[[Type]] is "ArrayBuffer".

4. If value has a [[DataView]] internal slot, then set serialized to { [[Type]]: "ArrayBufferView", [[Constructor]]:
"DataView", [[ArrayBufferSerialized]]: bufferSerialized, [[ByteLength]]: value.[[ByteLength]], [[ByteOffset]]:
value.[[ByteOffset]] }.

5. Otherwise:

1. Assert: value has a [[TypedArrayName]] internal slot.

2. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: "ArrayBufferView", [[Constructor]]: value.[[TypedArrayName]],

[[ArrayBufferSerialized]]: bufferSerialized, [[ByteLength]]: value.[[ByteLength]], [[ByteOffset]]:
value.[[ByteOffset]], [[ArrayLength]]: value.[[ArrayLength]] }.

15. Otherwise, if value has [[MapData]] internal slot, then:

1. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: "Map", [[MapData]]: a new empty List }.

2. Set deep to true.

16. Otherwise, if value has [[SetData]] internal slot, then:

1. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: "Set", [[SetData]]: a new empty List }.

101
 2. Set deep to true.

17. Otherwise, if value is an Array exotic object, then:

1. Let valueLenDescriptor be ? OrdinaryGetOwnProperty(value, "length").

2. Let valueLen be valueLenDescriptor.[[Value]].

3. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: "Array", [[Length]]: valueLen, [[Properties]]: a new empty List }.

4. Set deep to true.

18. Otherwise, if value is a platform object that is a serializable object p98 :

1. If value has a [[Detached]] p100 internal slot whose value is true, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

2. Let typeString be the identifier of the primary interface of value.

3. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: typeString }.

4. Set deep to true.

19. Otherwise, if value is a platform object, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

20. Otherwise, if IsCallable(value) is true, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

21. Otherwise, if value has any internal slot other than [[Prototype]] or [[Extensible]], then throw a "DataCloneError"
DOMException.

Example
For instance, a [[PromiseState]] or [[WeakMapData]] internal slot.

22. Otherwise, if value is an exotic object, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

Example
For instance, a proxy object.

23. Otherwise:

1. Set serialized to { [[Type]]: "Object", [[Properties]]: a new empty List }.

2. Set deep to true.

24. Set memory[value] to serialized.

25. If deep is true, then:

1. If value has a [[MapData]] internal slot, then:

1. Let copiedList be a new empty List.

2. For each Record { [[Key]], [[Value]] } entry of value.[[MapData]]:

1. Let copiedEntry be a new Record { [[Key]]: entry.[[Key]], [[Value]]: entry.[[Value]] }.

2. If copiedEntry.[[Key]] is not the special value empty, append copiedEntry to copiedList.

3. For each Record { [[Key]], [[Value]] } entry of copiedList:

1. Let serializedKey be ? StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (entry.[[Key]], forStorage, memory).

2. Let serializedValue be ? StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (entry.[[Value]], forStorage, memory).

3. Append { [[Key]]: serializedKey, [[Value]]: serializedValue } to serialized.[[MapData]].

2. Otherwise, if value has a [[SetData]] internal slot, then:

1. Let copiedList be a new empty List.

2. For each entry of value.[[SetData]]:

1. If entry is not the special value empty, append entry to copiedList.

102
 3. For each entry of copiedList:

1. Let serializedEntry be ? StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (entry, forStorage, memory).

2. Append serializedEntry to serialized.[[SetData]].

3. Otherwise, if value is a platform object that is a serializable object p98 , then perform the appropriate serialization
steps p98 given value, serialized, and forStorage.

The serialization steps p98 may need to perform a sub-serialization. This is an operation which takes as input a
value subValue, and returns StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (subValue, forStorage, memory). (In other words, a sub-
serialization p103 is a specialization of StructuredSerializeInternal p100 to be consistent within this invocation.)

4. Otherwise:

1. Let enumerableKeys be a new empty List.

2. For each key in ! value.[[OwnPropertyKeys]]():

1. If Type(key) is String, then:

1. Let valueDesc be ! value.[[GetOwnProperty]](key).

2. If valueDesc.[[Enumerable]] is true, then append key to enumerableKeys.

3. For each key in enumerableKeys:

1. If ! HasOwnProperty(value, key) is true, then:

1. Let inputValue be ? value.[[Get]](key, value).

2. Let outputValue be ? StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (inputValue, forStorage, memory).

3. Append { [[Key]]: key, [[Value]]: outputValue } to serialized.[[Properties]].

Note
The key collection performed above is very similar to the JavaScript specification's EnumerableOwnProperties
operation, but crucially it uses the deterministic ordering provided by the [[OwnPropertyKeys]] internal
method, instead of reordering the keys in an unspecified manner as EnumerableOwnProperties does.
[JAVASCRIPT] p1220

26. Return serialized.

Example

It's important to realize that the Records produced by StructuredSerializeInternal p100 might contain "pointers" to other records that
create circular references. For example, when we pass the following JavaScript object into StructuredSerializeInternal p100 :

const o = {};
o.myself = o;

it produces the following result:

{
[[Type]]: "Object",
[[Properties]]: «
{
[[Key]]: "myself",
[[Value]]: <a pointer to this whole structure>
}
»
}

103
 2.7.4 StructuredSerialize ( value ) § p10
4

1. Return ? StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (value, false).

2.7.5 StructuredSerializeForStorage ( value ) § p10

4

p100
1. Return ? StructuredSerializeInternal (value, true).

2.7.6 StructuredDeserialize ( serialized, targetRealm [ , memory ] ) § p10

4

p104
The StructuredDeserialize abstract operation takes as input a Record serialized, which was previously produced by
StructuredSerialize p104 or StructuredSerializeForStorage p104 , and deserializes it into a new JavaScript value, created in targetRealm.

This process can throw an exception, for example when trying to allocate memory for the new objects (especially ArrayBuffer
objects).

1. If memory was not supplied, let memory be an empty map.

Note
The purpose of the memory map is to avoid deserializing objects twice. This ends up preserving cycles and the identity
of duplicate objects in graphs.

2. If memory[serialized] exists, then return memory[serialized].

3. Let deep be false.

4. Let value be an uninitialized value.

5. If serialized.[[Type]] is "primitive", then set value to serialized.[[Value]].

6. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Boolean", then set value to a new Boolean object in targetRealm whose [[BooleanData]]
internal slot value is serialized.[[BooleanData]].

7. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Number", then set value to a new Number object in targetRealm whose [[NumberData]]
internal slot value is serialized.[[NumberData]].

8. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "BigInt", then set value to a new BigInt object in targetRealm whose [[BigIntData]] internal
slot value is serialized.[[BigIntData]]. [JSBIGINT] p1220

9. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "String", then set value to a new String object in targetRealm whose [[StringData]] internal
slot value is serialized.[[StringData]].

10. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Date", then set value to a new Date object in targetRealm whose [[DateValue]] internal
slot value is serialized.[[DateValue]].

11. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "RegExp", then set value to a new RegExp object in targetRealm whose [[RegExpMatcher]]
internal slot value is serialized.[[RegExpMatcher]], whose [[OriginalSource]] internal slot value is serialized.[[OriginalSource]],
and whose [[OriginalFlags]] internal slot value is serialized.[[OriginalFlags]].

12. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "SharedArrayBuffer", then:

1. If targetRealm's corresponding agent cluster is not serialized.[[AgentCluster]], then then throw a

"DataCloneError" DOMException.

2. Otherwise, set value to a new SharedArrayBuffer object in targetRealm whose [[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot
value is serialized.[[ArrayBufferData]] and whose [[ArrayBufferByteLength]] internal slot value is
serialized.[[ArrayBufferByteLength]].

13. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "ArrayBuffer", then set value to a new ArrayBuffer object in targetRealm whose
[[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot value is serialized.[[ArrayBufferData]], and whose [[ArrayBufferByteLength]] internal slot
value is serialized.[[ArrayBufferByteLength]].

If this throws an exception, catch it, and then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

104
 Note
This step might throw an exception if there is not enough memory available to create such an ArrayBuffer object.

14. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "ArrayBufferView", then:

1. Let deserializedArrayBuffer be ? StructuredDeserialize p104 (serialized.[[ArrayBufferSerialized]], targetRealm,

memory).

2. If serialized.[[Constructor]] is "DataView", then set value to a new DataView object in targetRealm whose
[[ViewedArrayBuffer]] internal slot value is deserializedArrayBuffer, whose [[ByteLength]] internal slot value is
serialized.[[ByteLength]], and whose [[ByteOffset]] internal slot value is serialized.[[ByteOffset]].

3. Otherwise, set value to a new typed array object in targetRealm, using the constructor given by
serialized.[[Constructor]], whose [[ViewedArrayBuffer]] internal slot value is deserializedArrayBuffer, whose
[[TypedArrayName]] internal slot value is serialized.[[Constructor]], whose [[ByteLength]] internal slot value is
serialized.[[ByteLength]], whose [[ByteOffset]] internal slot value is serialized.[[ByteOffset]], and whose
[[ArrayLength]] internal slot value is serialized.[[ArrayLength]].

15. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Map", then:

1. Set value to a new Map object in targetRealm whose [[MapData]] internal slot value is a new empty List.

2. Set deep to true.

16. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Set", then:

1. Set value to a new Set object in targetRealm whose [[SetData]] internal slot value is a new empty List.

2. Set deep to true.

17. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Array", then:

1. Let outputProto be the %ArrayPrototype% intrinsic object in targetRealm.

2. Set value to ! ArrayCreate(serialized.[[Length]], outputProto).

3. Set deep to true.

18. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Object", then:

1. Set value to a new Object in targetRealm.

2. Set deep to true.

19. Otherwise:

1. Let interfaceName be serialized.[[Type]].

2. If the interface identified by interfaceName is not exposed in targetRealm, then throw a "DataCloneError"
DOMException.

3. Set value to a new instance of the interface identified by interfaceName, created in targetRealm.

4. Set deep to true.

20. Set memory[serialized] to value.

21. If deep is true, then:

1. If serialized.[[Type]] is "Map", then:

1. For each Record { [[Key]], [[Value]] } entry of serialized.[[MapData]]:

1. Let deserializedKey be ? StructuredDeserialize p104 (entry.[[Key]], targetRealm, memory).

2. Let deserializedValue be ? StructuredDeserialize p104 (entry.[[Value]], targetRealm, memory).

3. Append { [[Key]]: deserializedKey, [[Value]]: deserializedValue } to value.[[MapData]].

2. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Set", then:

1. For each entry of serialized.[[SetData]]:

105
 1. Let deserializedEntry be ? StructuredDeserialize p104 (entry, targetRealm, memory).

2. Append deserializedEntry to value.[[SetData]].

3. Otherwise, if serialized.[[Type]] is "Array" or "Object", then:

1. For each Record { [[Key]], [[Value]] } entry of serialized.[[Properties]]:

1. Let deserializedValue be ? StructuredDeserialize p104 (entry.[[Value]], targetRealm, memory).

2. Let result be ! CreateDataProperty(value, entry.[[Key]], deserializedValue).

3. Assert: result is true.

4. Otherwise:

1. Perform the appropriate deserialization steps p99 for the interface identified by serialized.[[Type]], given
serialized and value.

The deserialization steps p99 may need to perform a sub-deserialization. This is an operation which
takes as input a previously-serialized Record subSerialized, and returns
StructuredDeserialize p104 (subSerialized, targetRealm, memory). (In other words, a sub-deserialization p106
is a specialization of StructuredDeserialize p104 to be consistent within this invocation.)

22. Return value.

2.7.7 StructuredSerializeWithTransfer ( value, transferList ) § p10

6

1. Let memory be an empty map.

Note
In addition to how it is used normally by StructuredSerializeInternal p100 , in this algorithm memory is also used to ensure
that StructuredSerializeInternal p100 ignores items in transferList, and let us do our own handling instead.

2. For each transferable of transferList:

1. If transferable has neither an [[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot nor a [[Detached]] p100 internal slot, then throw a
"DataCloneError" DOMException.

2. If transferable has an [[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot and ! IsSharedArrayBuffer(transferable) is true, then throw a
"DataCloneError" DOMException.

3. If memory[transferable] exists, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException.

4. Set memory[transferable] to { [[Type]]: an uninitialized value }.

Note
transferable is not transferred yet as transferring has side effects and StructuredSerializeInternal p100 needs to
be able to throw first.

3. Let serialized be ? StructuredSerializeInternal p100 (value, false, memory).

4. Let transferDataHolders be a new empty List.

5. For each transferable of transferList:

1. If transferable has an [[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot and ! IsDetachedBuffer(transferable) is true, then throw a
"DataCloneError" DOMException.

2. If transferable has a [[Detached]] p100 internal slot and transferable.[[Detached]] p100 is true, then throw a
"DataCloneError" DOMException.

3. Let dataHolder be memory[transferable].

4. If transferable has an [[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot, then:

106
 1. Set dataHolder.[[Type]] to "ArrayBuffer".

2. Set dataHolder.[[ArrayBufferData]] to transferable.[[ArrayBufferData]].

3. Set dataHolder.[[ArrayBufferByteLength]] to transferable.[[ArrayBufferByteLength]].

4. Perform ! DetachArrayBuffer(transferable).

5. Otherwise:

1. Assert: transferable is a platform object that is a transferable object p99 .

2. Let interfaceName be the identifier of the primary interface of transferable.

3. Set dataHolder.[[Type]] to interfaceName.

4. Perform the appropriate transfer steps p100 for the interface identified by interfaceName, given
transferable and dataHolder.

5. Set transferable.[[Detached]] p100 to true.

6. Append dataHolder to transferDataHolders.

6. Return { [[Serialized]]: serialized, [[TransferDataHolders]]: transferDataHolders }.

2.7.8 StructuredDeserializeWithTransfer ( serializeWithTransferResult, targetRealm ) § p10

7

1. Let memory be an empty map.

Note
Analogous to StructuredSerializeWithTransfer p106 , in addition to how it is used normally by StructuredDeserialize p104 , in
this algorithm memory is also used to ensure that StructuredDeserialize p104 ignores items in
serializeWithTransferResult.[[TransferDataHolders]], and let us do our own handling instead.

2. Let transferredValues be a new empty List.

3. For each transferDataHolder of serializeWithTransferResult.[[TransferDataHolders]]:

1. Let value be an uninitialized value.

2. If transferDataHolder.[[Type]] is "ArrayBuffer", then set value to a new ArrayBuffer object in targetRealm whose
[[ArrayBufferData]] internal slot value is transferDataHolder.[[ArrayBufferData]], and whose
[[ArrayBufferByteLength]] internal slot value is transferDataHolder.[[ArrayBufferByteLength]].

Note
In cases where the original memory occupied by [[ArrayBufferData]] is accessible during the deserialization,
this step is unlikely to throw an exception, as no new memory needs to be allocated: the memory occupied by
[[ArrayBufferData]] is instead just getting transferred into the new ArrayBuffer. This could be true, for example,
when both the source and target Realms are in the same process.

3. Otherwise:

1. Let interfaceName be transferDataHolder.[[Type]].

2. If the interface identified by interfaceName is not exposed in targetRealm, then throw a

"DataCloneError" DOMException.

3. Set value to a new instance of the interface identified by interfaceName, created in targetRealm.

4. Perform the appropriate transfer-receiving steps p100 for the interface identified by interfaceName given
transferDataHolder and value.

4. Set memory[transferDataHolder] to value.

5. Append value to transferredValues.

107
 4. Let deserialized be ? StructuredDeserialize p104 (serializeWithTransferResult.[[Serialized]], targetRealm, memory).

5. Return { [[Deserialized]]: deserialized, [[TransferredValues]]: transferredValues }.

2.7.9 Performing serialization and transferring from other specifications § p10

8

Other specifications may use the abstract operations defined here. The following provides some guidance on when each abstract
operation is typically useful, with examples.

StructuredSerializeWithTransfer p106
StructuredDeserializeWithTransfer p107
Cloning a value to another JavaScript Realm, with a transfer list, but where the target Realm is not known ahead of time. In this case
the serialization step can be performed immediately, with the deserialization step delayed until the target Realm becomes known.

Example
messagePort.postMessage() p963 uses this pair of abstract operations, as the destination Realm is not known until the
MessagePort p961 has been shipped p962 .

StructuredSerialize p104
StructuredSerializeForStorage p104
StructuredDeserialize p104
Creating a JavaScript Realm-independent snapshot of a given value which can be saved for an indefinite amount of time, and then
reified back into a JavaScript value later, possibly multiple times.

StructuredSerializeForStorage p104 can be used for situations where the serialization is anticipated to be stored in a persistent
manner, instead of passed between Realms. It throws when attempting to serialize SharedArrayBuffer objects, since storing
shared memory does not make sense. Similarly, it can throw or possibly have different behavior when given a platform object with
custom serialization steps p98 when the forStorage argument is true.

Example
history.pushState() p812 and history.replaceState() p812 use StructuredSerializeForStorage p104 on author-supplied state
objects, storing them as serialized state p809 in the appropriate session history entry p808 . Then, StructuredDeserialize p104 is used
so that the history.state p811 property can return a clone of the originally-supplied state object.

Example
broadcastChannel.postMessage() p965 uses StructuredSerialize p104 on its input, then uses StructuredDeserialize p104 multiple
times on the result to produce a fresh clone for each destination being broadcast to. Note that transferring does not make sense
in multi-destination situations.

Example
Any API for persisting JavaScript values to the filesystem would also use StructuredSerializeForStorage p104 on its input and
StructuredDeserialize p104 on its output.

In general, call sites may pass in Web IDL values instead of JavaScript values; this is to be understood to perform an implicit conversion
to the JavaScript value before invoking these algorithms.

Note
This specification used to define a "structured clone" algorithm, and more recently a StructuredClone abstract operation. However,
in practice all known uses of it were better served by separate serialization and deserialization steps, so it was removed.

Call sites that are not invoked as a result of author code synchronously calling into a user agent method must take care to properly
prepare to run script p876 and prepare to run a callback p880 before invoking StructuredSerialize p104 , StructuredSerializeForStorage p104 , or
StructuredSerializeWithTransfer p106 abstract operations, if they are being performed on arbitrary objects. This is necessary because the
serialization process can invoke author-defined accessors as part of its final deep-serialization steps, and these accessors could call
into operations that rely on the entry p878 and incumbent p878 concepts being properly set up.

Example
window.postMessage() p957 performs StructuredSerializeWithTransfer p106 on its arguments, but is careful to do so immediately,
108
 inside the synchronous portion of its algorithm. Thus it is able to use the algorithms without needing to prepare to run script p876
and prepare to run a callback p880 .

Example
In contrast, a hypothetical API that used StructuredSerialize p104 to serialize some author-supplied object periodically, directly from a
task p892 on the event loop p892 , would need to ensure it performs the appropriate preparations beforehand. As of this time, we know
of no such APIs on the platform; usually it is simpler to perform the serialization ahead of time, as a synchronous consequence of
author code.

109
 3 Semantics, structure, and APIs of HTML documents § p11
0

3.1 Documents § p11

Every XML and HTML document in an HTML UA is represented by a Document p110 object. [DOM] p1219

The Document p110 object's URL is defined in the WHATWG DOM standard. It is initially set when the Document p110 object is created, but
can change during the lifetime of the Document p110 object; for example, it changes when the user navigates p824 to a fragment p834 on the
page and when the pushState() p812 method is called with a new URL. [DOM] p1219

⚠Warning!
Interactive user agents typically expose the Document p110 object's URL in their user interface. This is the primary
mechanism by which a user can tell if a site is attempting to impersonate another.

When a Document p110 is created by a script p866 using the createDocument() or createHTMLDocument() the Document p110 is both ready
for post-load tasks p1103 and completely loaded p1103 immediately.

The document's referrer is a string (representing a URL) that can be set when the Document p110 is created. If it is not explicitly set,
then its value is the empty string.

Each Document p110 object has a reload override flag that is originally unset. The flag is set by the document.open(type,
replace) p911 and document.write() p912 methods in certain situations. When the flag is set, the Document p110 also has a reload
override buffer which is a Unicode string that is used as the source of the document when it is reloaded.

When the user agent is to perform an overridden reload, given a source browsing context p824 , it must act as follows:

1. Let source be the value of the browsing context p779 's active document p779 's reload override buffer p110 .

2. Let address be the browsing context p779 's active document p779 's URL.

3. Let HTTPS state be the HTTPS state p111 of the browsing context p779 's active document p779 .

4. Let referrer policy be the referrer policy p111 of the browsing context p779 's active document p779 .

5. Let CSP list be the CSP list p111 of the browsing context p779 's active document p779 .

6. Navigate p824 the browsing context p779 to a new response whose body is source, header list is `Referrer-Policy`/referrer
policy, CSP list is CSP list and HTTPS state is HTTPS state, with the exceptions enabled flag p824 set and replacement
enabled p836 . The source browsing context p824 is that given to the overridden reload p110 algorithm. When the navigate p824
algorithm creates a Document p110 object for this purpose, set that Document p110 's reload override flag p110 and set its reload
override buffer p110 to source. Rethrow any exceptions.

When it comes time to set the document's address p828 in the navigation algorithm p824 , use address as the override URL p828 .

3.1.1 The Document p110 object §

p11

The WHATWG DOM standard defines a Document interface, which this specification extends significantly.

IDL
enum DocumentReadyState { "loading", "interactive", "complete" };
typedef (HTMLScriptElement or SVGScriptElement) HTMLOrSVGScriptElement;

[OverrideBuiltins]
partial interface Document {
// resource metadata management
[PutForwards=href, Unforgeable] readonly attribute Location? location;
attribute USVString domain;
readonly attribute USVString referrer;
attribute USVString cookie;

110
 readonly attribute DOMString lastModified;
readonly attribute DocumentReadyState readyState;

// DOM tree accessors

getter object (DOMString name);
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString title;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString dir;
[CEReactions] attribute HTMLElement? body;
readonly attribute HTMLHeadElement? head;
[SameObject] readonly attribute HTMLCollection images;
[SameObject] readonly attribute HTMLCollection embeds;
[SameObject] readonly attribute HTMLCollection plugins;
[SameObject] readonly attribute HTMLCollection links;
[SameObject] readonly attribute HTMLCollection forms;
[SameObject] readonly attribute HTMLCollection scripts;
NodeList getElementsByName(DOMString elementName);
readonly attribute HTMLOrSVGScriptElement? currentScript; // classic scripts in a document tree only

// dynamic markup insertion

[CEReactions] Document open(optional DOMString type, optional DOMString replace = ""); // type is
ignored
WindowProxy open(USVString url, DOMString name, DOMString features);
[CEReactions] void close();
[CEReactions] void write(DOMString... text);
[CEReactions] void writeln(DOMString... text);

// user interaction
readonly attribute WindowProxy? defaultView;
readonly attribute Element? activeElement;
boolean hasFocus();
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString designMode;
[CEReactions] boolean execCommand(DOMString commandId, optional boolean showUI = false, optional
DOMString value = "");
boolean queryCommandEnabled(DOMString commandId);
boolean queryCommandIndeterm(DOMString commandId);
boolean queryCommandState(DOMString commandId);
boolean queryCommandSupported(DOMString commandId);
DOMString queryCommandValue(DOMString commandId);

// special event handler IDL attributes that only apply to Document objects
[LenientThis] attribute EventHandler onreadystatechange;
};
Document includes GlobalEventHandlers;
Document includes DocumentAndElementEventHandlers;

The Document p110 has an HTTPS state (an HTTPS state value), initially "none", which represents the security properties of the network
channel used to deliver the Document p110 's data.

The Document p110 has a referrer policy (a referrer policy), initially the empty string, which represents the default referrer policy used
by fetches initiated by the Document p110 .

The Document p110 has a CSP list, which is a CSP list containing all of the Content Security Policy objects active for the document. The
list is empty unless otherwise specified.

The Document p110 has a feature policy, which is a feature policy, which is initially empty.

The Document p110 has a module map, which is a module map p885 , initially empty.

111
 3.1.2 Resource metadata management § p11
2

For web developers (non-normative)

document . referrer p112

Returns the URL of the Document p110 from which the user navigated to this one, unless it was blocked or there was no such
document, in which case it returns the empty string.
The noreferrer p292 link type can be used to block the referrer.

The referrer attribute must return the document's referrer p110 .

For web developers (non-normative)

document . cookie p112 [ = value ]

Returns the HTTP cookies that apply to the Document p110 . If there are no cookies or cookies can't be applied to this resource,
the empty string will be returned.
Can be set, to add a new cookie to the element's set of HTTP cookies.
If the contents are sandboxed into a unique origin p806 (e.g. in an iframe p347 with the sandbox p351 attribute), a "SecurityError"
DOMException will be thrown on getting and setting.

The cookie attribute represents the cookies of the resource identified by the document's URL.

A Document p110 object that falls into one of the following conditions is a cookie-averse Document object:

• A Document p110 that has no browsing context p779 .

• A Document p110 whose URL's scheme is not a network scheme.

On getting, if the document is a cookie-averse Document object p112 , then the user agent must return the empty string. Otherwise, if the
Document p110 's origin p802 is an opaque origin p802 , the user agent must throw a "SecurityError" DOMException. Otherwise, the user
agent must return the cookie-string p50 for the document's URL for a "non-HTTP" API, decoded using UTF-8 decode without BOM.
[COOKIES] p1217

On setting, if the document is a cookie-averse Document object p112 , then the user agent must do nothing. Otherwise, if the p30

Document p110 's origin p802 is an opaque origin p802 , the user agent must throw a "SecurityError" DOMException. Otherwise, the user
agent must act as it would when receiving a set-cookie-string p50 for the document's URL via a "non-HTTP" API, consisting of the new
value encoded as UTF-8. [COOKIES] p1217 [ENCODING] p1219

Note
Since the cookie p112 attribute is accessible across frames, the path restrictions on cookies are only a tool to help manage which
cookies are sent to which parts of the site, and are not in any way a security feature.

⚠Warning!
The cookie p112 attribute's getter and setter synchronously access shared state. Since there is no locking mechanism,
other browsing contexts in a multiprocess user agent can modify cookies while scripts are running. A site could, for
instance, try to read a cookie, increment its value, then write it back out, using the new value of the cookie as a
unique identifier for the session; if the site does this twice in two different browser windows at the same time, it
might end up using the same "unique" identifier for both sessions, with potentially disastrous effects.

For web developers (non-normative)

document . lastModified p112

Returns the date of the last modification to the document, as reported by the server, in the form "MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss", in
the user's local time zone.
If the last modification date is not known, the current time is returned instead.

The lastModified attribute, on getting, must return the date and time of the Document p110 's source file's last modification, in the
112
user's local time zone, in the following format:

1. The month component of the date.

2. A U+002F SOLIDUS character (/).

3. The day component of the date.

4. A U+002F SOLIDUS character (/).

5. The year component of the date.

6. A U+0020 SPACE character.

7. The hours component of the time.

8. A U+003A COLON character (:).

9. The minutes component of the time.

10. A U+003A COLON character (:).

11. The seconds component of the time.

All the numeric components above, other than the year, must be given as two ASCII digits representing the number in base ten, zero-
padded if necessary. The year must be given as the shortest possible string of four or more ASCII digits representing the number in
base ten, zero-padded if necessary.

The Document p110 's source file's last modification date and time must be derived from relevant features of the networking protocols
used, e.g. from the value of the HTTP `Last-Modified` header of the document, or from metadata in the file system for local files. If
the last modification date and time are not known, the attribute must return the current date and time in the above format.

For web developers (non-normative)

document . readyState p113

Returns "loading" while the Document p110 is loading, "interactive" once it is finished parsing but still loading subresources,
and "complete" once it has loaded.
The readystatechange p1213 event fires on the Document p110 object when this value changes.
The DOMContentLoaded p1212 event fires after the transition to "interactive" but before the transition to "complete", at the
point where all subresources apart from async p595 script p594 elements have loaded.

Each document has a current document readiness. When a Document p110 object is created, it must have its current document
readiness p113 set to the string "loading" if the document is associated with an HTML parser p1018 , an XML parser p1125 , or an XSLT
processor, and to the string "complete" otherwise. Various algorithms during page loading affect this value. When the value is set, the
user agent must fire an event named readystatechange p1213 at the Document p110 object.

A Document p110 is said to have an active parser if it is associated with an HTML parser p1018 or an XML parser p1125 that has not yet been
stopped p1102 or aborted p1103 .

The readyState IDL attribute must, on getting, return the current document readiness p113 .

3.1.3 DOM tree accessors § p11

3

The html element of a document is its document element, if it's an html p148 element, and null otherwise.

For web developers (non-normative)

document . head p114

Returns the head element p114 .

113
 The head element of a document is the first head p149 element that is a child of the html element p113 , if there is one, or null otherwise.

The head attribute, on getting, must return the head element p114 of the document (a head p149 element or null).
⋰ Support:
Chrome fo
Chrome
iOS Safari
For web developers (non-normative) UC Browse
Android
Firefox
document . title p114 [ = value ] IE

p114 Opera Min

Returns the document's title, as given by the title element for HTML and as given by the SVG title element for SVG. Safari
Samsung
Can be set, to update the document's title. If there is no appropriate element to update, the new value is ignored. Edge
Opera
Android B
Sou

The title element of a document is the first title p150 element in the document (in tree order), if there is one, or null otherwise.

The title attribute must, on getting, run the following algorithm:

1. If the document element is an SVG svg element, then let value be the child text content of the first SVG title element that
is a child of the document element.

2. Otherwise, let value be the child text content of the title element p114 , or the empty string if the title element p114 is null.

3. Strip and collapse ASCII whitespace in value.

4. Return value.

On setting, the steps corresponding to the first matching condition in the following list must be run:

↪ If the document element is an SVG svg element

1. If there is an SVG title element that is a child of the document element, let element be the first such element.

2. Otherwise:

1. Let element be the result of creating an element given the document element's node document, title, and
the SVG namespace.

2. Insert element as the first child of the document element.

3. Act as if the textContent IDL attribute of element was set to the new value being assigned.

↪ If the document element is in the HTML namespace

1. If the title element p114 is null and the head element p114 is null, then return.

2. If the title element p114 is non-null, let element be the title element p114 .

3. Otherwise:

1. Let element be the result of creating an element given the document element's node document, title p150 ,
and the HTML namespace.

2. Append element to the head element p114 .

4. Act as if the textContent IDL attribute of element was set to the new value being assigned.

↪ Otherwise
Do nothing.

For web developers (non-normative)

document . body p115 [ = value ]

Returns the body element p115 .
Can be set, to replace the body element p115 .
If the new value is not a body p171 or frameset p1173 element, this will throw a "HierarchyRequestError" DOMException.

114
The body element of a document is the first of the html element p113 's children that is either a body p171 element or a frameset p1173
element, or null if there is no such element.

The body attribute, on getting, must return the body element p115 of the document (either a body p171 element, a frameset p1173 element,
or null). On setting, the following algorithm must be run:

1. If the new value is not a body p171 or frameset p1173 element, then throw a "HierarchyRequestError" DOMException.

2. Otherwise, if the new value is the same as the body element p115 , return.

3. Otherwise, if the body element p115 is not null, then replace the body element p115 with the new value within the body
element p115 's parent and return.

4. Otherwise, if there is no document element, throw a "HierarchyRequestError" DOMException.

5. Otherwise, the body element p115 is null, but there's a document element. Append the new value to the document element.

Note
The value returned by the body p115 getter is not always the one passed to the setter.

Example

In this example, the setter successfully inserts a body p171 element (though this is non-conforming since SVG does not allow a
body p171 as child of SVG svg). However the getter will return null because the document element is not html p148 .

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<script>
document.body = document.createElementNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml", "body");
console.assert(document.body === null);
</script>
</svg>

For web developers (non-normative)

document . images p115

Returns an HTMLCollection of the img p307 elements in the Document p110 .

document . embeds p115

document . plugins p115
Return an HTMLCollection of the embed p354 elements in the Document p110 .

document . links p115

Returns an HTMLCollection of the a p230 and area p428 elements in the Document p110 that have href p274 attributes.

document . forms p115

Return an HTMLCollection of the form p470 elements in the Document p110 .

document . scripts p116

Return an HTMLCollection of the script p594 elements in the Document p110 .

The images attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document p110 node, whose filter matches only img p307 elements.

The embeds attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document p110 node, whose filter matches only embed p354 elements.

The plugins attribute must return the same object as that returned by the embeds p115 attribute.

The links attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document p110 node, whose filter matches only a p230 elements with
href p274 attributes and area p428 elements with href p274 attributes.

The forms attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document p110 node, whose filter matches only form p470 elements.

115
 The scripts attribute must return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document p110 node, whose filter matches only script p594
elements.

For web developers (non-normative)

collection = document . getElementsByName p116 (name)

Returns a NodeList of elements in the Document p110 that have a name attribute with the value name.

The getElementsByName(name) method takes a string name, and must return a live p45 NodeList containing all the HTML elements p44
in that document that have a name attribute whose value is equal to the name argument (in a case-sensitive p64 manner), in tree order.
When the method is invoked on a Document p110 object again with the same argument, the user agent may return the same as the
object returned by the earlier call. In other cases, a new NodeList object must be returned.

For web developers (non-normative)

document . currentScript p116

Returns the script p594 element, or the SVG script element, that is currently executing, as long as the element represents a
classic script p867 . In the case of reentrant script execution, returns the one that most recently started executing amongst those
that have not yet finished executing.
Returns null if the Document p110 is not currently executing a script p594 or SVG script element (e.g., because the running script
is an event handler, or a timeout), or if the currently executing script p594 or SVG script element represents a module
script p867 .

The currentScript attribute, on getting, must return the value to which it was most recently set. When the Document p110 is created,
the currentScript p116 must be initialized to null.
⋰ Support:
currentscript

Note Chrome fo
Chrome
p594
This API has fallen out of favor in the implementer and standards community, as it globally exposes script or SVG script iOS Safari
UC Browse
elements. As such, it is not available in newer contexts, such as when running module scripts p867 or when running scripts in a Android
Firefox
shadow tree. We are looking into creating a new solution for identifying the running script in such contexts, which does not make it
IE
globally available: see issue #1013. Opera Min
Safari
Samsung
Edge
Opera
p110 p110
The Document interface supports named properties. The supported property names of a Document object document at any Android B
Sou
moment consist of the following, in tree order according to the element that contributed them, ignoring later duplicates, and with
values from id p133 attributes coming before values from name attributes when the same element contributes both:

• the value of the name content attribute for all exposed p117 embed p354 , form p470 , iframe p347 , img p307 , and exposed p117 object p358
elements that have a non-empty name content attribute and are in a document tree with document as their root;

• the value of the id p133 content attribute for all exposed p117 object p358 elements that have a non-empty id p133 content
attribute and are in a document tree with document as their root; and

• the value of the id p133 content attribute for all img p307 elements that have both a non-empty id p133 content attribute and a
non-empty name content attribute, and are in a document tree with document as their root.

To determine the value of a named property name for a Document p110 , the user agent must return the value obtained using the
following steps:

1. Let elements be the list of named elements p117 with the name name that are in a document tree with the Document p110 as
their root.

Note
There will be at least one such element, by definition.

2. If elements has only one element, and that element is an iframe p347 element, and that iframe p347 element's nested browsing
context p780 is not null, then return the WindowProxy p799 object of the element's nested browsing context p780 .

3. Otherwise, if elements has only one element, return that element.

116
 4. Otherwise return an HTMLCollection rooted at the Document p110 node, whose filter matches only named elements p117 with
the name name.

Named elements with the name name, for the purposes of the above algorithm, are those that are either:

• Exposed p117 embed p354 , form p470 , iframe p347 , img p307 , or exposed p117 object p358 elements that have a name content attribute
whose value is name, or

• Exposed p117 object p358 elements that have an id p133 content attribute whose value is name, or

• img p307 elements that have an id p133 content attribute whose value is name, and that have a non-empty name content
attribute present also.

An embed p354 or object p358 element is said to be exposed if it has no exposed p117 object p358 ancestor, and, for object p358 elements, is
additionally either not showing its fallback content p129 or has no object p358 or embed p354 descendants.

Note
The dir p140 attribute on the Document p110 interface is defined along with the dir p138 content attribute.

3.2 Elements § p11

7

3.2.1 Semantics § p11

7

Elements, attributes, and attribute values in HTML are defined (by this specification) to have certain meanings (semantics). For
example, the ol p213 element represents an ordered list, and the lang p136 attribute represents the language of the content.

These definitions allow HTML processors, such as Web browsers or search engines, to present and use documents and applications in a
wide variety of contexts that the author might not have considered.

Example

As a simple example, consider a Web page written by an author who only considered desktop computer Web browsers:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>My Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to my page</h1>
<p>I like cars and lorries and have a big Jeep!</p>
<h2>Where I live</h2>
<p>I live in a small hut on a mountain!</p>
</body>
</html>

Because HTML conveys meaning, rather than presentation, the same page can also be used by a small browser on a mobile phone,
without any change to the page. Instead of headings being in large letters as on the desktop, for example, the browser on the
mobile phone might use the same size text for the whole page, but with the headings in bold.

But it goes further than just differences in screen size: the same page could equally be used by a blind user using a browser based
around speech synthesis, which instead of displaying the page on a screen, reads the page to the user, e.g. using headphones.
Instead of large text for the headings, the speech browser might use a different volume or a slower voice.

That's not all, either. Since the browsers know which parts of the page are the headings, they can create a document outline that
the user can use to quickly navigate around the document, using keys for "jump to next heading" or "jump to previous heading".
Such features are especially common with speech browsers, where users would otherwise find quickly navigating a page quite
difficult.

117
 Even beyond browsers, software can make use of this information. Search engines can use the headings to more effectively index
a page, or to provide quick links to subsections of the page from their results. Tools can use the headings to create a table of
contents (that is in fact how this very specification's table of contents is generated).

This example has focused on headings, but the same principle applies to all of the semantics in HTML.

Authors must not use elements, attributes, or attribute values for purposes other than their appropriate intended semantic purpose, as
doing so prevents software from correctly processing the page.

Example

For example, the following snippet, intended to represent the heading of a corporate site, is non-conforming because the second
line is not intended to be a heading of a subsection, but merely a subheading or subtitle (a subordinate heading for the same
section).

<body>
<h1>ACME Corporation</h1>
<h2>The leaders in arbitrary fast delivery since 1920</h2>
...

The hgroup p185 element is intended for these kinds of situations:

<body>
<hgroup>
<h1>ACME Corporation</h1>
<h2>The leaders in arbitrary fast delivery since 1920</h2>
</hgroup>
...

Example

The document in this next example is similarly non-conforming, despite being syntactically correct, because the data placed in the
cells is clearly not tabular data, and the cite p237 element mis-used:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en-GB">
<head> <title> Demonstration </title> </head>
<body>
<table>
<tr> <td> My favourite animal is the cat. </td> </tr>
<tr>
<td>
—<a href="https://example.org/~ernest/"><cite>Ernest</cite></a>,
in an essay from 1992
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

This would make software that relies on these semantics fail: for example, a speech browser that allowed a blind user to navigate
tables in the document would report the quote above as a table, confusing the user; similarly, a tool that extracted titles of works
from pages would extract "Ernest" as the title of a work, even though it's actually a person's name, not a title.

A corrected version of this document might be:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>

118
 <html lang="en-GB">
<head> <title> Demonstration </title> </head>
<body>
<blockquote>
<p> My favourite animal is the cat. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>
—<a href="https://example.org/~ernest/">Ernest</a>,
in an essay from 1992
</p>
</body>
</html>

Authors must not use elements, attributes, or attribute values that are not permitted by this specification or other applicable
specifications p63 , as doing so makes it significantly harder for the language to be extended in the future.

Example

In the next example, there is a non-conforming attribute value ("carpet") and a non-conforming attribute ("texture"), which is not
permitted by this specification:

<label>Carpet: <input type="carpet" name="c" texture="deep pile"></label>

Here would be an alternative and correct way to mark this up:

<label>Carpet: <input type="text" class="carpet" name="c" data-texture="deep pile"></label>

DOM nodes whose node document does not have a browsing context p779 are exempt from all document conformance requirements
other than the HTML syntax p1006 requirements and XML syntax p1125 requirements.

Example

In particular, the template p610 element's template contents p611 's node document does not have a browsing context p779 . For
example, the content model p125 requirements and attribute value microsyntax requirements do not apply to a template p610
element's template contents p611 . In this example an img p307 element has attribute values that are placeholders that would be
invalid outside a template p610 element.

<template>
<article>
<img src="{{src}}" alt="{{alt}}">
<h1></h1>
</article>
</template>

However, if the above markup were to omit the </h1> end tag, that would be a violation of the HTML syntax p1006 , and would thus
be flagged as an error by conformance checkers.

Through scripting and using other mechanisms, the values of attributes, text, and indeed the entire structure of the document may
change dynamically while a user agent is processing it. The semantics of a document at an instant in time are those represented by
the state of the document at that instant in time, and the semantics of a document can therefore change over time. User agents must
update their presentation of the document as this occurs.

Example
HTML has a progress p537 element that describes a progress bar. If its "value" attribute is dynamically updated by a script, the UA
would update the rendering to show the progress changing.

119
 3.2.2 Elements in the DOM § p12
0

The nodes representing HTML elements p44 in the DOM must implement, and expose to scripts, the interfaces listed for them in the
relevant sections of this specification. This includes HTML elements p44 in XML documents, even when those documents are in another
context (e.g. inside an XSLT transform).

Elements in the DOM represent things; that is, they have intrinsic meaning, also known as semantics.

Example
For example, an ol p213 element represents an ordered list.

Elements can be referenced (referred to) in some way, either explicitly or implicitly. One way that an element in the DOM can be
explicitly referenced is by giving an id p133 attribute to the element, and then creating a hyperlink p273 with that id p133 attribute's value
as the fragment p834 for the hyperlink p273 's href p274 attribute value. Hyperlinks are not necessary for a reference, however; any manner
of referring to the element in question will suffice.

Example

Consider the following figure p224 element, which is given an id p133 attribute:

<figure id="module-script-graph">
<img src="module-script-graph.svg"
alt="Module A depends on module B, which depends
on modules C and D.">
<figcaption>Figure 27: a simple module graph</figcaption>
</figure>

A hyperlink p273 -based reference p120 could be created using the a p230 element, like so:

As we can see in <a href="#module-script-graph">figure 27</a>, ...

However, there are many other ways of referencing p120 the figure p224 element, such as:

• "As depicted in the figure of modules A, B, C, and D..."

• "In Figure 27..." (without a hyperlink)

• "From the contents of the 'simple module graph' figure..."

• "In the figure below..." (but this is discouraged p225 )

The basic interface, from which all the HTML elements p44 ' interfaces inherit, and which must be used by elements that have no
additional requirements, is the HTMLElement p120 interface.

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
HTMLConstructor]
interface HTMLElement : Element {
// metadata attributes
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString title;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString lang;
[CEReactions] attribute boolean translate;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString dir;

// user interaction
[CEReactions] attribute boolean hidden;
void click();
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString accessKey;
readonly attribute DOMString accessKeyLabel;
[CEReactions] attribute boolean draggable;
[CEReactions] attribute boolean spellcheck;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString autocapitalize;

120
 [CEReactions] attribute [TreatNullAs=EmptyString] DOMString innerText;
};

HTMLElement includes GlobalEventHandlers;

HTMLElement includes DocumentAndElementEventHandlers;
HTMLElement includes ElementContentEditable;
HTMLElement includes HTMLOrSVGElement;

// Note: intentionally not [HTMLConstructor]

[Exposed=Window]
interface HTMLUnknownElement : HTMLElement { };

The HTMLElement p120 interface holds methods and attributes related to a number of disparate features, and the members of this
interface are therefore described in various different sections of this specification.

The element interface for an element with name name in the HTML namespace is determined as follows:

1. If name is applet p1166 , bgsound p1166 , blink p1167 , isindex p1166 , keygen p1166 , multicol p1167 , nextid p1166 , or spacer p1167 , then
return HTMLUnknownElement p121 .

2. If name is acronym p1166 , basefont p1167 , big p1167 , center p1167 , nobr p1167 , noembed p1166 , noframes p1166 , plaintext p1166 , rb p1166 ,
rtc p1166 , strike p1167 , or tt p1167 , then return HTMLElement p120 .

3. If name is listing p1166 or xmp p1167 , then return HTMLPreElement p209 .

4. Otherwise, if this specification defines an interface appropriate for the element type p44 corresponding to the local name
name, then return that interface.

5. If other applicable specifications p63 define an appropriate interface for name, then return the interface they define.

6. If name is a valid custom element name p681 , then return HTMLElement p120 .

7. Return HTMLUnknownElement p121 .

Note
The use of HTMLElement p120 instead of HTMLUnknownElement p121 in the case of valid custom element names p681 is done to ensure
that any potential future upgrades p686 only cause a linear transition of the element's prototype chain, from HTMLElement p120 to a
subclass, instead of a lateral one, from HTMLUnknownElement p121 to an unrelated subclass.

Features shared between HTML and SVG elements use the HTMLOrSVGElement p121 interface mixin: [SVG] p1223

IDL
interface mixin HTMLOrSVGElement {
[SameObject] readonly attribute DOMStringMap dataset;
attribute DOMString nonce;

[CEReactions] attribute long tabIndex;

void focus(optional FocusOptions options);
void blur();
};

3.2.3 HTML element constructors § p12

1

p675
To support the custom elements feature, all HTML elements have special constructor behavior. This is indicated via the
[HTMLConstructor] IDL extended attribute. It indicates that the interface object for the given interface will have a specific behavior
when called, as defined in detail below.

The [HTMLConstructor] p121 extended attribute must take no arguments, and must not appear on anything other than an interface. It
must appear only once on an interface, and the interface must not be annotated with the [Constructor] or [NoInterfaceObject]
extended attributes. (However, the interface may be annotated with [NamedConstructor]; there is no conflict there.) It must not be
121
 used on a callback interface.

Interface objects for interfaces annotated with the [HTMLConstructor] p121 extended attribute must run the following steps as the
function body behavior for both [[Call]] and [[Construct]] invocations of the corresponding JavaScript function object. When invoked
with [[Call]], the NewTarget value is undefined, and so the algorithm below will immediately throw. When invoked with [[Construct]],
the [[Construct]] newTarget parameter provides the NewTarget value.

1. Let registry be the current global object p883 's CustomElementRegistry p683 object.

2. If NewTarget is equal to the active function object, then throw a TypeError.

Example

This can occur when a custom element is defined using an element interface as its constructor:

customElements.define("bad-1", HTMLButtonElement);
new HTMLButtonElement(); // (1)
document.createElement("bad-1"); // (2)

In this case, during the execution of HTMLButtonElement p518 (either explicitly, as in (1), or implicitly, as in (2)), both the
active function object and NewTarget are HTMLButtonElement p518 . If this check was not present, it would be possible to
create an instance of HTMLButtonElement p518 whose local name was bad-1.

3. Let definition be the entry in registry with constructor p682 equal to NewTarget. If there is no such definition, then throw a
TypeError.

Note
Since there can be no entry in registry with a constructor p682 of undefined, this step also prevents HTML element
constructors from being called as functions (since in that case NewTarget will be undefined).

4. Let is value be null.

5. If definition's local name p682 is equal to definition's name p682 (i.e., definition is for an autonomous custom element p681 ), then:

1. If the active function object is not HTMLElement p120 , then throw a TypeError.

Example

This can occur when a custom element is defined to not extend any local names, but inherits from a
non-HTMLElement p120 class:

customElements.define("bad-2", class Bad2 extends HTMLParagraphElement {});

In this case, during the (implicit) super() call that occurs when constructing an instance of Bad2, the active
function object is HTMLParagraphElement p205 , not HTMLElement p120 .

6. Otherwise (i.e., if definition is for a customized built-in element p681 ):

1. Let valid local names be the list of local names for elements defined in this specification or in other applicable
specifications p63 that use the active function object as their element interface.

2. If valid local names does not contain definition's local name p682 , then throw a TypeError.

Example

This can occur when a custom element is defined to extend a given local name but inherits from the wrong
class:

customElements.define("bad-3", class Bad3 extends HTMLQuoteElement {}, { extends:

"p" });

122
 In this case, during the (implicit) super() call that occurs when constructing an instance of Bad3, valid local
names is the list containing q p239 and blockquote p210 , but definition's local name p682 is p p205 , which is not in that
list.

3. Set is value to definition's name p682 .

7. Let prototype be Get(NewTarget, "prototype"). Rethrow any exceptions.

8. If Type(prototype) is not Object, then:

1. Let realm be GetFunctionRealm(NewTarget).

2. Set prototype to the interface prototype object of realm whose interface is the same as the interface of the active
function object.

Note
The realm of the active function object might not be realm, so we are using the more general concept of "the same
interface" across realms; we are not looking for equality of interface objects. This fallback behavior, including using the
realm of NewTarget and looking up the appropriate prototype there, is designed to match analogous behavior for the
JavaScript built-ins.

9. If definition's construction stack p682 is empty, then:

1. Let element be a new element that implements the interface to which the active function object corresponds, with
no attributes, namespace set to the HTML namespace, local name set to definition's local name p682 , and node
document set to the current global object p883 's associated Document p792 .

2. Perform element.[[SetPrototypeOf]](prototype). Rethrow any exceptions.

3. Set element's custom element state to "custom".

4. Set element's custom element definition to definition.

5. Set element's is value to is value.

6. Return element.

Note
This occurs when author script constructs a new custom element directly, e.g. via new MyCustomElement().

10. Let element be the last entry in definition's construction stack p682 .

11. If element is an already constructed marker p682 , then throw an "InvalidStateError" DOMException.

Example

This can occur when the author code inside the custom element constructor p680 non-conformantly p680 creates another
instance of the class being constructed, before calling super():

let doSillyThing = false;

class DontDoThis extends HTMLElement {

constructor() {
if (doSillyThing) {
doSillyThing = false;
new DontDoThis();
// Now the construction stack will contain an already constructed marker.
}

// This will then fail with an "InvalidStateError" DOMException:

super();
}

123
 }

Example

This can also occur when author code inside the custom element constructor p680 non-conformantly p680 calls super()
twice, since per the JavaScript specification, this actually executes the superclass constructor (i.e. this algorithm) twice,
before throwing an error:

class DontDoThisEither extends HTMLElement {

constructor() {
super();

// This will throw, but not until it has already called into the HTMLElement
constructor
super();
}
}

12. Perform element.[[SetPrototypeOf]](prototype). Rethrow any exceptions.

13. Replace the last entry in definition's construction stack p682 with an already constructed marker p682 .

14. Return element.

Note
This step is normally reached when upgrading p686 a custom element; the existing element is returned, so that the
super() call inside the custom element constructor p680 assigns that existing element to this.

In addition to the constructor behavior implied by [HTMLConstructor] p121 , some elements also have named constructors (which are
really factory functions with a modified prototype property).

Example

Named constructors for HTML elements can also be used in an extends clause when defining a custom element constructor p680 :

class AutoEmbiggenedImage extends Image {

constructor(width, height) {
super(width * 10, height * 10);
}
}

customElements.define("auto-embiggened", AutoEmbiggenedImage, { extends: "img" });

const image = new AutoEmbiggenedImage(15, 20);

console.assert(image.width === 150);
console.assert(image.height === 200);

3.2.4 Element definitions § p12

4

Each element in this specification has a definition that includes the following information:

Categories
A list of categories p126 to which the element belongs. These are used when defining the content models p125 for each element.

124
Contexts in which this element can be used
A non-normative description of where the element can be used. This information is redundant with the content models of elements
that allow this one as a child, and is provided only as a convenience.

Note
For simplicity, only the most specific expectations are listed. For example, an element that is both flow content p128 and phrasing
content p128 can be used anywhere that either flow content p128 or phrasing content p128 is expected, but since anywhere that flow
content p128 is expected, phrasing content p128 is also expected (since all phrasing content p128 is flow content p128 ), only "where
phrasing content p128 is expected" will be listed.

Content model
A normative description of what content must be included as children and descendants of the element.

Tag omission in text/html

A non-normative description of whether, in the text/html p1185 syntax, the start p1008 and end p1009 tags can be omitted. This
information is redundant with the normative requirements given in the optional tags p1010 section, and is provided in the element
definitions only as a convenience.

Content attributes
A normative list of attributes that may be specified on the element (except where otherwise disallowed), along with non-normative
descriptions of those attributes. (The content to the left of the dash is normative, the content to the right of the dash is not.)

DOM interface
A normative definition of a DOM interface that such elements must implement.

This is then followed by a description of what the element represents p120 , along with any additional normative conformance criteria
that may apply to authors and implementations. Examples are sometimes also included.

3.2.4.1 Attributes § p12

5

An attribute value is a string. Except where otherwise specified, attribute values on HTML elements p44 may be any string value,
including the empty string, and there is no restriction on what text can be specified in such attribute values.

3.2.5 Content models § p12

5

Each element defined in this specification has a content model: a description of the element's expected contents p125 . An HTML
element p44 must have contents that match the requirements described in the element's content model. The contents of an element
are its children in the DOM.

ASCII whitespace is always allowed between elements. User agents represent these characters between elements in the source
markup as Text nodes in the DOM. Empty Text nodes and Text nodes consisting of just sequences of those characters are considered
inter-element whitespace.

Inter-element whitespace p125 , comment nodes, and processing instruction nodes must be ignored when establishing whether an
element's contents match the element's content model or not, and must be ignored when following algorithms that define document
and element semantics.

Note
Thus, an element A is said to be preceded or followed by a second element B if A and B have the same parent node and there are
no other element nodes or Text nodes (other than inter-element whitespace p125 ) between them. Similarly, a node is the only child
of an element if that element contains no other nodes other than inter-element whitespace p125 , comment nodes, and processing
instruction nodes.

Authors must not use HTML elements p44 anywhere except where they are explicitly allowed, as defined for each element, or as
explicitly required by other specifications. For XML compound documents, these contexts could be inside elements from other
namespaces, if those elements are defined as providing the relevant contexts.

Example

125
 For example, the Atom specification defines a content element. When its type attribute has the value xhtml, the Atom
specification requires that it contain a single HTML div p229 element. Thus, a div p229 element is allowed in that context, even though
this is not explicitly normatively stated by this specification. [ATOM] p1217

In addition, HTML elements p44 may be orphan nodes (i.e. without a parent node).

Example

For example, creating a td p449 element and storing it in a global variable in a script is conforming, even though td p449 elements are
otherwise only supposed to be used inside tr p448 elements.

var data = {
name: "Banana",
cell: document.createElement('td'),
};

3.2.5.1 The "nothing" content model § p12

6

When an element's content model is nothing, the element must contain no Text nodes (other than inter-element whitespace p125 ) and
no element nodes.

Note
Most HTML elements whose content model is "nothing" are also, for convenience, void elements p1007 (elements that have no end
tag p1009 in the HTML syntax p1006 ). However, these are entirely separate concepts.

3.2.5.2 Kinds of content § p12

6

Each element in HTML falls into zero or more categories that group elements with similar characteristics together. The following broad
categories are used in this specification:

• Metadata content p127

• Flow content p128
• Sectioning content p128
• Heading content p128
• Phrasing content p128
• Embedded content p129
• Interactive content p129

Note
Some elements also fall into other categories, which are defined in other parts of this specification.

These categories are related as follows:

126
 Flow

Phrasing Heading
Interactive
Embedded

Sectioning

Metadata

Sectioning content, heading content, phrasing content, embedded content, and interactive content are all types of flow content.
Metadata is sometimes flow content. Metadata and interactive content are sometimes phrasing content. Embedded content is also a
type of phrasing content, and sometimes is interactive content.

Other categories are also used for specific purposes, e.g. form controls are specified using a number of categories to define common
requirements. Some elements have unique requirements and do not fit into any particular category.

3.2.5.2.1 Metadata content § p12

7

Metadata content is content that sets up the presentation or behavior of the rest of the content, or that sets up the relationship of
the document with other documents, or that conveys other "out of band" information.

⇒ base p151 , link p153 , meta p158 , noscript p608 , script p594 , style p168 , template p610 , title p150

Elements from other namespaces whose semantics are primarily metadata-related (e.g. RDF) are also metadata content p127 .

Example

Thus, in the XML serialization, one can use RDF, like this:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:r="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Hedral's Home Page</title>
<r:RDF>
<Person xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/pim/contact#"
r:about="https://hedral.example.com/#">
<fullName>Cat Hedral</fullName>
<mailbox r:resource="mailto:[email protected]"/>
<personalTitle>Sir</personalTitle>
</Person>
</r:RDF>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My home page</h1>
<p>I like playing with string, I guess. Sister says squirrels are fun
too so sometimes I follow her to play with them.</p>
</body>
</html>

This isn't possible in the HTML serialization, however.

127
 3.2.5.2.2 Flow content § p12
8

Most elements that are used in the body of documents and applications are categorized as flow content.

⇒ a p230 , abbr p241 , address p190 , area p428 (if it is a descendant of a map p426 element), article p173 , aside p181 , audio p368 , b p264 ,
bdi p268 , bdo p269 , blockquote p210 , br p270 , button p518 , canvas p614 , cite p237 , code p258 , data p250 , datalist p525 , del p300 ,
details p584 , dfn p240 , dialog p591 , div p229 , dl p219 , em p233 , embed p354 , fieldset p544 , figure p224 , footer p188 , form p470 , h1 p183 , h2 p183 ,
h3 p183 , h4 p183 , h5 p183 , h6 p183 , header p187 , hgroup p185 , hr p207 , i p263 , iframe p347 , img p307 , input p476 , ins p298 , kbd p261 , label p474 ,
link p153 (if it is allowed in the body p154 ), main p228 (if it is a hierarchically correct main element p228 ), map p426 , mark p266 , MathML
math, menu p216 , meta p158 (if the itemprop p712 attribute is present), meter p539 , nav p178 , noscript p608 , object p358 , ol p213 ,
output p535 , p p205 , picture p303 , pre p209 , progress p537 , q p239 , ruby p243 , s p237 , samp p260 , script p594 , section p175 , select p520 ,
slot p613 , small p235 , span p270 , strong p234 , sub p262 , sup p262 , SVG svg, table p435 , template p610 , textarea p530 , time p251 , u p265 ,
ul p215 , var p259 , video p365 , wbr p271 , autonomous custom elements p681 , text p128

3.2.5.2.3 Sectioning content § p12

8

Sectioning content is content that defines the scope of headings p128 and footers p188 .

⇒ article p173 , aside p181 , nav p178 , section p175

Each sectioning content p128 element potentially has a heading and an outline p194 . See the section on headings and sections p192 for
further details.

Note
There are also certain elements that are sectioning roots p192 . These are distinct from sectioning content p128 , but they can also have
an outline p194 .

3.2.5.2.4 Heading content § p12

8

Heading content defines the header of a section (whether explicitly marked up using sectioning content p128 elements, or implied by
the heading content itself).

⇒ h1 p183 , h2 p183 , h3 p183 , h4 p183 , h5 p183 , h6 p183 , hgroup p185

3.2.5.2.5 Phrasing content § p12 ⋰ Spec bug

8

Phrasing content is the text of the document, as well as elements that mark up that text at the intra-paragraph level. Runs of
phrasing content p128 form paragraphs p130 .

⇒ a p230 , abbr p241 , area p428 (if it is a descendant of a map p426 element), audio p368 , b p264 , bdi p268 , bdo p269 , br p270 , button p518 ,
canvas p614 , cite p237 , code p258 , data p250 , datalist p525 , del p300 , dfn p240 , em p233 , embed p354 , i p263 , iframe p347 , img p307 , input p476 ,
ins p298 , kbd p261 , label p474 , link p153 (if it is allowed in the body p154 ), map p426 , mark p266 , MathML math, meta p158 (if the
itemprop p712 attribute is present), meter p539 , noscript p608 , object p358 , output p535 , picture p303 , progress p537 , q p239 , ruby p243 ,
s p237 , samp p260 , script p594 , select p520 , slot p613 , small p235 , span p270 , strong p234 , sub p262 , sup p262 , SVG svg, template p610 ,
textarea p530 , time p251 , u p265 , var p259 , video p365 , wbr p271 , autonomous custom elements p681 , text p128

Note
Most elements that are categorized as phrasing content can only contain elements that are themselves categorized as phrasing
content, not any flow content.

Text, in the context of content models, means either nothing, or Text nodes. Text p128 is sometimes used as a content model on its
own, but is also phrasing content p128 , and can be inter-element whitespace p125 (if the Text nodes are empty or contain just ASCII
whitespace).

Text nodes and attribute values must consist of scalar values, excluding noncharacters, and controls other than ASCII whitespace. This
specification includes extra constraints on the exact value of Text nodes and attribute values depending on their precise context.

128
3.2.5.2.6 Embedded content § p12
9

Embedded content is content that imports another resource into the document, or content from another vocabulary that is inserted
into the document.

⇒ audio p368 , canvas p614 , embed p354 , iframe p347 , img p307 , MathML math, object p358 , picture p303 , SVG svg, video p365

Elements that are from namespaces other than the HTML namespace and that convey content but not metadata, are embedded
content p129 for the purposes of the content models defined in this specification. (For example, MathML, or SVG.)

Some embedded content elements can have fallback content: content that is to be used when the external resource cannot be used
(e.g. because it is of an unsupported format). The element definitions state what the fallback is, if any.

3.2.5.2.7 Interactive content § p12

9

Interactive content is content that is specifically intended for user interaction.

⇒ a p230 (if the href p274 attribute is present), audio p368 (if the controls p420 attribute is present), button p518 , details p584 ,
embed p354 , iframe p347 , img p307 (if the usemap p430 attribute is present), input p476 (if the type p478 attribute is not in the
Hidden p482 state), label p474 , object p358 (if the usemap p430 attribute is present), select p520 , textarea p530 , video p365 (if the
controls p420 attribute is present)

The tabindex p745 attribute can also make any element into interactive content p129 .

3.2.5.2.8 Palpable content § p12

9

As a general rule, elements whose content model allows any flow content p128 or phrasing content p128 should have at least one node in
its contents p125 that is palpable content and that does not have the hidden p740 attribute specified.

Note
Palpable content p129 makes an element non-empty by providing either some descendant non-empty text p128 , or else something
users can hear (audio p368 elements) or view (video p365 or img p307 or canvas p614 elements) or otherwise interact with (for example,
interactive form controls).

This requirement is not a hard requirement, however, as there are many cases where an element can be empty legitimately, for
example when it is used as a placeholder which will later be filled in by a script, or when the element is part of a template and would
on most pages be filled in but on some pages is not relevant.

Conformance checkers are encouraged to provide a mechanism for authors to find elements that fail to fulfill this requirement, as an
authoring aid.

The following elements are palpable content:

⇒ a p230 , abbr p241 , address p190 , article p173 , aside p181 , audio p368 (if the controls p420 attribute is present), b p264 , bdi p268 ,
bdo p269 , blockquote p210 , button p518 , canvas p614 , cite p237 , code p258 , data p250 , details p584 , dfn p240 , div p229 , dl p219 (if the
element's children include at least one name-value group), em p233 , embed p354 , fieldset p544 , figure p224 , footer p188 , form p470 ,
h1 p183 , h2 p183 , h3 p183 , h4 p183 , h5 p183 , h6 p183 , header p187 , hgroup p185 , i p263 , iframe p347 , img p307 , input p476 (if the type p478 attribute
is not in the Hidden p482 state), ins p298 , kbd p261 , label p474 , main p228 , map p426 , mark p266 , MathML math, menu p216 (if the element's
children include at least one li p217 element), meter p539 , nav p178 , object p358 , ol p213 (if the element's children include at least
one li p217 element), output p535 , p p205 , pre p209 , progress p537 , q p239 , ruby p243 , s p237 , samp p260 , section p175 , select p520 , small p235 ,
span p270 , strong p234 , sub p262 , sup p262 , SVG svg, table p435 , textarea p530 , time p251 , u p265 , ul p215 (if the element's children include
at least one li p217 element), var p259 , video p365 , autonomous custom elements p681 , text p128 that is not inter-element
whitespace p125

3.2.5.2.9 Script-supporting elements § p12

9

Script-supporting elements are those that do not represent p120 anything themselves (i.e. they are not rendered), but are used to
support scripts, e.g. to provide functionality for the user.

129
 The following elements are script-supporting elements:

⇒ script p594 , template p610

3.2.5.3 Transparent content models § p13

0

Some elements are described as transparent; they have "transparent" in the description of their content model. The content model of
a transparent p130 element is derived from the content model of its parent element: the elements required in the part of the content
model that is "transparent" are the same elements as required in the part of the content model of the parent of the transparent
element in which the transparent element finds itself.

Example

For instance, an ins p298 element inside a ruby p243 element cannot contain an rt p249 element, because the part of the ruby p243
element's content model that allows ins p298 elements is the part that allows phrasing content p128 , and the rt p249 element is not
phrasing content p128 .

Note
In some cases, where transparent elements are nested in each other, the process has to be applied iteratively.

Example

Consider the following markup fragment:

<p><object><param><ins><map><a href="/">Apples</a></map></ins></object></p>

To check whether "Apples" is allowed inside the a p230 element, the content models are examined. The a p230 element's content
model is transparent, as is the map p426 element's, as is the ins p298 element's, as is the part of the object p358 element's in which the
ins p298 element is found. The object p358 element is found in the p p205 element, whose content model is phrasing content p128 . Thus,
"Apples" is allowed, as text is phrasing content.

When a transparent element has no parent, then the part of its content model that is "transparent" must instead be treated as
accepting any flow content p128 .

3.2.5.4 Paragraphs § p13

0

Note
The term paragraph p130 as defined in this section is used for more than just the definition of the p p205 element. The paragraph p130
concept defined here is used to describe how to interpret documents. The p p205 element is merely one of several ways of marking
up a paragraph p130 .

A paragraph is typically a run of phrasing content p128 that forms a block of text with one or more sentences that discuss a particular
topic, as in typography, but can also be used for more general thematic grouping. For instance, an address is also a paragraph, as is a
part of a form, a byline, or a stanza in a poem.

Example

In the following example, there are two paragraphs in a section. There is also a heading, which contains phrasing content that is
not a paragraph. Note how the comments and inter-element whitespace p125 do not form paragraphs.

<section>
<h1>Example of paragraphs</h1>
This is the <em>first</em> paragraph in this example.
<p>This is the second.</p>
<!-- This is not a paragraph. -->
</section>

130
Paragraphs in flow content p128 are defined relative to what the document looks like without the a p230 , ins p298 , del p300 , and map p426
elements complicating matters, since those elements, with their hybrid content models, can straddle paragraph boundaries, as shown
in the first two examples below.

Note
Generally, having elements straddle paragraph boundaries is best avoided. Maintaining such markup can be difficult.

Example

The following example takes the markup from the earlier example and puts ins p298 and del p300 elements around some of the
markup to show that the text was changed (though in this case, the changes admittedly don't make much sense). Notice how this
example has exactly the same paragraphs as the previous one, despite the ins p298 and del p300 elements — the ins p298 element
straddles the heading and the first paragraph, and the del p300 element straddles the boundary between the two paragraphs.

<section>
<ins><h1>Example of paragraphs</h1>
This is the <em>first</em> paragraph in</ins> this example<del>.
<p>This is the second.</p></del>
<!-- This is not a paragraph. -->
</section>

Let view be a view of the DOM that replaces all a p230 , ins p298 , del p300 , and map p426 elements in the document with their contents p125 .
Then, in view, for each run of sibling phrasing content p128 nodes uninterrupted by other types of content, in an element that accepts
content other than phrasing content p128 as well as phrasing content p128 , let first be the first node of the run, and let last be the last
node of the run. For each such run that consists of at least one node that is neither embedded content p129 nor inter-element
whitespace p125 , a paragraph exists in the original DOM from immediately before first to immediately after last. (Paragraphs can thus
span across a p230 , ins p298 , del p300 , and map p426 elements.)

Conformance checkers may warn authors of cases where they have paragraphs that overlap each other (this can happen with
object p358 , video p365 , audio p368 , and canvas p614 elements, and indirectly through elements in other namespaces that allow HTML to be
further embedded therein, like SVG svg or MathML math).

A paragraph p130 is also formed explicitly by p p205 elements.

Note
The p p205 element can be used to wrap individual paragraphs when there would otherwise not be any content other than phrasing
content to separate the paragraphs from each other.

Example

In the following example, the link spans half of the first paragraph, all of the heading separating the two paragraphs, and half of
the second paragraph. It straddles the paragraphs and the heading.

<header>
Welcome!
<a href="about.html">
This is home of...
<h1>The Falcons!</h1>
The Lockheed Martin multirole jet fighter aircraft!
</a>
This page discusses the F-16 Fighting Falcon's innermost secrets.
</header>

Here is another way of marking this up, this time showing the paragraphs explicitly, and splitting the one link element into three:

<header>
<p>Welcome! <a href="about.html">This is home of...</a></p>
<h1><a href="about.html">The Falcons!</a></h1>
<p><a href="about.html">The Lockheed Martin multirole jet
fighter aircraft!</a> This page discusses the F-16 Fighting

131
 Falcon's innermost secrets.</p>
</header>

Example

It is possible for paragraphs to overlap when using certain elements that define fallback content. For example, in the following
section:

<section>
<h1>My Cats</h1>
You can play with my cat simulator.
<object data="cats.sim">
To see the cat simulator, use one of the following links:
<ul>
<li><a href="cats.sim">Download simulator file</a>
<li><a href="https://sims.example.com/watch?v=LYds5xY4INU">Use online simulator</a>
</ul>
Alternatively, upgrade to the Mellblom Browser.
</object>
I'm quite proud of it.
</section>

There are five paragraphs:

1. The paragraph that says "You can play with my cat simulator. object I'm quite proud of it.", where object is the object p358
element.
2. The paragraph that says "To see the cat simulator, use one of the following links:".
3. The paragraph that says "Download simulator file".
4. The paragraph that says "Use online simulator".
5. The paragraph that says "Alternatively, upgrade to the Mellblom Browser.".

The first paragraph is overlapped by the other four. A user agent that supports the "cats.sim" resource will only show the first one,
but a user agent that shows the fallback will confusingly show the first sentence of the first paragraph as if it was in the same
paragraph as the second one, and will show the last paragraph as if it was at the start of the second sentence of the first
paragraph.

To avoid this confusion, explicit p p205 elements can be used. For example:

<section>
<h1>My Cats</h1>
<p>You can play with my cat simulator.</p>
<object data="cats.sim">
<p>To see the cat simulator, use one of the following links:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="cats.sim">Download simulator file</a>
<li><a href="https://sims.example.com/watch?v=LYds5xY4INU">Use online simulator</a>
</ul>
<p>Alternatively, upgrade to the Mellblom Browser.</p>
</object>
<p>I'm quite proud of it.</p>
</section>

3.2.6 Global attributes § p13

2

The following attributes are common to and may be specified on all HTML elements p44 (even those not defined in this specification):

• accesskey p753
• autocapitalize p760
• contenteditable p755
132
 • dir p138
• draggable p777
• hidden p740
• inputmode p761
• is p681
• itemid p710
• itemprop p712
• itemref p710
• itemscope p709
• itemtype p709
• lang p136
• nonce p89
• spellcheck p758
• style p141
• tabindex p745
• title p135
• translate p137

These attributes are only defined by this specification as attributes for HTML elements p44 . When this specification refers to elements
having these attributes, elements from namespaces that are not defined as having these attributes must not be considered as being
elements with these attributes.

Example

For example, in the following XML fragment, the "bogus" element does not have a dir p138 attribute as defined in this specification,
despite having an attribute with the literal name "dir". Thus, the directionality p138 of the inner-most span p270 element is 'rtl p138 ',
inherited from the div p229 element indirectly through the "bogus" element.

<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="rtl">

<bogus xmlns="https://example.net/ns" dir="ltr">
<span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
</span>
</bogus>
</div>

The WHATWG DOM standard defines the user agent requirements for the class, id, and slot attributes for any element in any
namespace. [DOM] p1219

The class p133 , id p133 , and slot p133 attributes may be specified on all HTML elements p44 .

When specified on HTML elements p44 , the class p133 attribute must have a value that is a set of space-separated tokens p84 representing
the various classes that the element belongs to.

Note

Assigning classes to an element affects class matching in selectors in CSS, the getElementsByClassName() method in the DOM,
and other such features.

There are no additional restrictions on the tokens authors can use in the class p133 attribute, but authors are encouraged to use
values that describe the nature of the content, rather than values that describe the desired presentation of the content.

When specified on HTML elements p44 , the id p133 attribute value must be unique amongst all the IDs in the element's tree and must
contain at least one character. The value must not contain any ASCII whitespace.

Note

The id p133 attribute specifies its element's unique identifier (ID).

There are no other restrictions on what form an ID can take; in particular, IDs can consist of just digits, start with a digit, start with
an underscore, consist of just punctuation, etc.

An element's unique identifier can be used for a variety of purposes, most notably as a way to link to specific parts of a document

133
 using fragments, as a way to target an element when scripting, and as a way to style a specific element from CSS.

Identifiers are opaque strings. Particular meanings should not be derived from the value of the id p133 attribute.

There are no conformance requirements for the slot p133 attribute specific to HTML elements p44 .

Note
The slot p133 attribute is used to assign a slot to an element: an element with a slot p133 attribute is assigned to the slot created by
the slot p613 element whose name p613 attribute's value matches that slot p133 attribute's value — but only if that slot p613 element
finds itself in the shadow tree whose root's host has the corresponding slot p133 attribute value.

To enable assistive technology products to expose a more fine-grained interface than is otherwise possible with HTML elements and
attributes, a set of annotations for assistive technology products p147 can be specified (the ARIA role p60 and aria-* p60 attributes).
[ARIA] p1217

The following event handler content attributes p899 may be specified on any HTML element p44 :

• onabort p903
• onauxclick p903
• onblur p904 *
• oncancel p903
• oncanplay p903
• oncanplaythrough p903
• onchange p903
• onclick p903
• onclose p903
• oncontextmenu p903
• oncuechange p903
• ondblclick p903
• ondrag p903
• ondragend p903
• ondragenter p903
• ondragexit p903
• ondragleave p903
• ondragover p903
• ondragstart p903
• ondrop p903
• ondurationchange p903
• onemptied p903
• onended p903
• onerror p904 *
• onfocus p904 *
• oninput p903
• oninvalid p903
• onkeydown p903
• onkeypress p903
• onkeyup p903
• onload p904 *
• onloadeddata p903
• onloadedmetadata p903
• onloadend p903
• onloadstart p903
• onmousedown p903
• onmouseenter p903
• onmouseleave p903
• onmousemove p903
• onmouseout p903
• onmouseover p903
• onmouseup p903
• onwheel p903
• onpause p903
• onplay p903
• onplaying p903
• onprogress p904
• onratechange p904
• onreset p904
134
 • onresize p904 *
• onscroll p904 *
• onsecuritypolicyviolation p904
• onseeked p904
• onseeking p904
• onselect p904
• onstalled p904
• onsubmit p904
• onsuspend p904
• ontimeupdate p904
• ontoggle p904
• onvolumechange p904
• onwaiting p904

Note
The attributes marked with an asterisk have a different meaning when specified on body p171 elements as those elements expose
event handlers p898 of the Window p790 object with the same names.

Note
While these attributes apply to all elements, they are not useful on all elements. For example, only media elements p372 will ever
receive a volumechange p425 event fired by the user agent.

Custom data attributes p141 (e.g. data-foldername or data-msgid) can be specified on any HTML element p44 , to store custom data,
state, annotations, and similar, specific to the page.

In HTML documents, elements in the HTML namespace may have an xmlns attribute specified, if, and only if, it has the exact value
"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml". This does not apply to XML documents.

Note
In HTML, the xmlns attribute has absolutely no effect. It is basically a talisman. It is allowed merely to make migration to and from
XML mildly easier. When parsed by an HTML parser p1018 , the attribute ends up in no namespace, not the "http://www.w3.org/
2000/xmlns/" namespace like namespace declaration attributes in XML do.

Note
In XML, an xmlns attribute is part of the namespace declaration mechanism, and an element cannot actually have an xmlns
attribute in no namespace specified.

The XML specification also allows the use of the xml:space p49 attribute in the XML namespace on any element in an XML document.
This attribute has no effect on HTML elements p44 , as the default behavior in HTML is to preserve whitespace. [XML] p1224

Note
There is no way to serialize the xml:space p49 attribute on HTML elements p44 in the text/html p1185 syntax.

3.2.6.1 The title p135 attribute §

p13

p120
The title attribute represents advisory information for the element, such as would be appropriate for a tooltip. On a link, this could
be the title or a description of the target resource; on an image, it could be the image credit or a description of the image; on a
paragraph, it could be a footnote or commentary on the text; on a citation, it could be further information about the source; on
interactive content p129 , it could be a label for, or instructions for, use of the element; and so forth. The value is text.

Note
Relying on the title p135 attribute is currently discouraged as many user agents do not expose the attribute in an accessible
manner as required by this specification (e.g., requiring a pointing device such as a mouse to cause a tooltip to appear, which
excludes keyboard-only users and touch-only users, such as anyone with a modern phone or tablet).

If this attribute is omitted from an element, then it implies that the title p135 attribute of the nearest ancestor HTML element p44 with a
title p135 attribute set is also relevant to this element. Setting the attribute overrides this, explicitly stating that the advisory
information of any ancestors is not relevant to this element. Setting the attribute to the empty string indicates that the element has no

135
 advisory information.

If the title p135 attribute's value contains U+000A LINE FEED (LF) characters, the content is split into multiple lines. Each U+000A LINE
FEED (LF) character represents a line break.

Example

Caution is advised with respect to the use of newlines in title p135 attributes.

For instance, the following snippet actually defines an abbreviation's expansion with a line break in it:

<p>My logs show that there was some interest in <abbr title="Hypertext
Transport Protocol">HTTP</abbr> today.</p>

Some elements, such as link p153 , abbr p241 , and input p476 , define additional semantics for the title p135 attribute beyond the semantics
described above.

The advisory information of an element is the value that the following algorithm returns, with the algorithm being aborted once a
value is returned. When the algorithm returns the empty string, then there is no advisory information.

1. If the element has a title p135 attribute, then return its value.

2. If the element has a parent element, then return the parent element's advisory information p136 .

3. Return the empty string.

User agents should inform the user when elements have advisory information p136 , otherwise the information would not be discoverable.

The title IDL attribute must reflect p90 the title p135 content attribute.

3.2.6.2 The lang p136 and xml:lang p136 attributes §

p13

The lang attribute (in no namespace) specifies the primary language for the element's contents and for any of the element's attributes
that contain text. Its value must be a valid BCP 47 language tag, or the empty string. Setting the attribute to the empty string indicates
that the primary language is unknown. [BCP47] p1217

The lang attribute in the XML namespace is defined in XML. [XML] p1224

If these attributes are omitted from an element, then the language of this element is the same as the language of its parent element, if
any.

The lang p136 attribute in no namespace may be used on any HTML element p44 .

The lang attribute in the XML namespace p136 may be used on HTML elements p44 in XML documents, as well as elements in other
namespaces if the relevant specifications allow it (in particular, MathML and SVG allow lang attributes in the XML namespace p136 to be
specified on their elements). If both the lang p136 attribute in no namespace and the lang attribute in the XML namespace p136 are
specified on the same element, they must have exactly the same value when compared in an ASCII case-insensitive manner.

Authors must not use the lang attribute in the XML namespace p136 on HTML elements p44 in HTML documents. To ease migration to and
from XML, authors may specify an attribute in no namespace with no prefix and with the literal localname "xml:lang" on HTML
elements p44 in HTML documents, but such attributes must only be specified if a lang p136 attribute in no namespace is also specified,
and both attributes must have the same value when compared in an ASCII case-insensitive manner.

Note
The attribute in no namespace with no prefix and with the literal localname "xml:lang" has no effect on language processing.

To determine the language of a node, user agents must look at the nearest ancestor element (including the element itself if the node
is an element) that has a lang attribute in the XML namespace p136 set or is an HTML element p44 and has a lang p136 in no namespace
attribute set. That attribute specifies the language of the node (regardless of its value).

136
If both the lang p136 attribute in no namespace and the lang attribute in the XML namespace p136 are set on an element, user agents
must use the lang attribute in the XML namespace p136 , and the lang p136 attribute in no namespace must be ignored p44 for the
purposes of determining the element's language.

If node's inclusive ancestors do not have either attribute set, but there is a pragma-set default language p164 set, then that is the
language of the node. If there is no pragma-set default language p164 set, then language information from a higher-level protocol (such
as HTTP), if any, must be used as the final fallback language instead. In the absence of any such language information, and in cases
where the higher-level protocol reports multiple languages, the language of the node is unknown, and the corresponding language tag
is the empty string.

If the resulting value is not a recognized language tag, then it must be treated as an unknown language having the given language
tag, distinct from all other languages. For the purposes of round-tripping or communicating with other services that expect language
tags, user agents should pass unknown language tags through unmodified, and tagged as being BCP 47 language tags, so that
subsequent services do not interpret the data as another type of language description. [BCP47] p1217

Example
Thus, for instance, an element with lang="xyzzy" would be matched by the selector :lang(xyzzy) (e.g. in CSS), but it would not
be matched by :lang(abcde), even though both are equally invalid. Similarly, if a Web browser and screen reader working in
unison communicated about the language of the element, the browser would tell the screen reader that the language was "xyzzy",
even if it knew it was invalid, just in case the screen reader actually supported a language with that tag after all. Even if the screen
reader supported both BCP 47 and another syntax for encoding language names, and in that other syntax the string "xyzzy" was a
way to denote the Belarusian language, it would be incorrect for the screen reader to then start treating text as Belarusian,
because "xyzzy" is not how Belarusian is described in BCP 47 codes (BCP 47 uses the code "be" for Belarusian).

If the resulting value is the empty string, then it must be interpreted as meaning that the language of the node is explicitly unknown.

User agents may use the element's language to determine proper processing or rendering (e.g. in the selection of appropriate fonts or
pronunciations, for dictionary selection, or for the user interfaces of form controls such as date pickers).

The lang IDL attribute must reflect p90 the lang p136 content attribute in no namespace.

3.2.6.3 The translate p137 attribute §

p13

The translate attribute is an enumerated attribute p65 that is used to specify whether an element's attribute values and the values of
its Text node children are to be translated when the page is localized, or whether to leave them unchanged.

The attribute's keywords are the empty string, yes, and no. The empty string and the yes keyword map to the yes state. The no
keyword maps to the no state. In addition, there is a third state, the inherit state, which is the missing value default p65 and the invalid
value default p65 .

Each element (even non-HTML elements) has a translation mode, which is in either the translate-enabled p137 state or the no-
translate p137 state. If an HTML element p44 's translate p137 attribute is in the yes state, then the element's translation mode p137 is in the
translate-enabled p137 state; otherwise, if the element's translate p137 attribute is in the no state, then the element's translation
mode p137 is in the no-translate p137 state. Otherwise, either the element's translate p137 attribute is in the inherit state, or the element
is not an HTML element p44 and thus does not have a translate p137 attribute; in either case, the element's translation mode p137 is in the
same state as its parent element's, if any, or in the translate-enabled p137 state, if the element is a document element.

When an element is in the translate-enabled state, the element's translatable attributes p137 and the values of its Text node children
are to be translated when the page is localized.

When an element is in the no-translate state, the element's attribute values and the values of its Text node children are to be left as-
is when the page is localized, e.g. because the element contains a person's name or a name of a computer program.

The following attributes are translatable attributes:

• abbr p452 on th p451 elements

• alt on area p429 , img p307 , and input p502 elements
• content p159 on meta p158 elements, if the name p159 attribute specifies a metadata name whose value is known to be
translatable
• download p274 on a p230 and area p428 elements
• label on optgroup p527 , option p529 , and track p371 elements
137
 • lang p136 on HTML elements p44 ; must be "translated" to match the language used in the translation
• placeholder on input p513 and textarea p533 elements
• srcdoc p348 on iframe p347 elements; must be parsed and recursively processed
• style p141 on HTML elements p44 ; must be parsed and recursively processed (e.g. for the values of 'content' properties)
• title p135 on all HTML elements p44
• value p480 on input p476 elements with a type p478 attribute in the Button p503 state or the Reset Button p503 state

Other specifications may define other attributes that are also translatable attributes p137 . For example, ARIA would define the aria-
label attribute as translatable.

The translate IDL attribute must, on getting, return true if the element's translation mode p137 is translate-enabled p137 , and false
otherwise. On setting, it must set the content attribute's value to "yes" if the new value is true, and set the content attribute's value to
"no" otherwise.

Example

In this example, everything in the document is to be translated when the page is localized, except the sample keyboard input and
sample program output:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang=en> <!-- default on the document element is translate=yes -->
<head>
<title>The Bee Game</title> <!-- implied translate=yes inherited from ancestors -->
</head>
<body>
<p>The Bee Game is a text adventure game in English.</p>
<p>When the game launches, the first thing you should do is type
<kbd translate=no>eat honey</kbd>. The game will respond with:</p>
<pre><samp translate=no>Yum yum! That was some good honey!</samp></pre>
</body>
</html>

3.2.6.4 The dir attribute § p13

8

The dir p138 attribute specifies the element's text directionality. The attribute is an enumerated attribute p65 with the following keywords
and states:

The ltr keyword, which maps to the ltr state

Indicates that the contents of the element are explicitly directionally isolated left-to-right text.

The rtl keyword, which maps to the rtl state

Indicates that the contents of the element are explicitly directionally isolated right-to-left text.

The auto keyword, which maps to the auto state

Indicates that the contents of the element are explicitly directionally isolated text, but that the direction is to be determined
programmatically using the contents of the element (as described below).

Note
The heuristic used by this state is very crude (it just looks at the first character with a strong directionality, in a manner
analogous to the Paragraph Level determination in the bidirectional algorithm). Authors are urged to only use this value as a
last resort when the direction of the text is truly unknown and no better server-side heuristic can be applied. [BIDI] p1217

Note
For textarea p530 and pre p209 elements, the heuristic is applied on a per-paragraph level.

The attribute has no invalid value default p65 and no missing value default p65 .

The directionality of an element (any element, not just an HTML element p44 ) is either 'ltr' or 'rtl', and is determined as per the first

138
appropriate set of steps from the following list:

p138
↪ If the element's dir attribute is in the ltr p138 state
p138
↪ If the element is a document element and the dir attribute is not in a defined state (i.e. it is not present or has
an invalid value)
p476
↪ If the element is an input element whose type p478 attribute is in the Telephone p483 state, and the dir p138 attribute
is not in a defined state (i.e. it is not present or has an invalid value)
The directionality p138 of the element is 'ltr p138 '.

p138
↪ If the element's dir attribute is in the rtl p138 state
The directionality p138 of the element is 'rtl p138 '.

p476
↪ If the element is an input element whose type p478 attribute is in the Text p482 , Search p482 , Telephone p483 , URL p483 , or
p485 p138
E-mail state, and the dir attribute is in the auto p138 state
p530
↪ If the element is a textarea element and the dir p138 attribute is in the auto p138 state
If the element's value p547 contains a character of bidirectional character type AL or R, and there is no character of bidirectional
character type L anywhere before it in the element's value p547 , then the directionality p138 of the element is 'rtl p138 '. [BIDI] p1217

Otherwise, if the element's value p547 is not the empty string, or if the element is a document element, the directionality p138 of
the element is 'ltr p138 '.

Otherwise, the directionality p138 of the element is the same as the element's parent element's directionality p138 .

p138
↪ If the element's dir attribute is in the auto p138 state
p268
↪ If the element is a bdi element and the dir p138 attribute is not in a defined state (i.e. it is not present or has an
invalid value)
Find the first character in tree order that matches the following criteria:

• The character is from a Text node that is a descendant of the element whose directionality p138 is being determined.

• The character is of bidirectional character type L, AL, or R. [BIDI] p1217

• The character is not in a Text node that has an ancestor element that is a descendant of the element whose
directionality p138 is being determined and that is either:

◦ A bdi p268 element.

◦ A script p594 element.
◦ A style p168 element.
◦ A textarea p530 element.
◦ An element with a dir p138 attribute in a defined state.

If such a character is found and it is of bidirectional character type AL or R, the directionality p138 of the element is 'rtl p138 '.

If such a character is found and it is of bidirectional character type L, the directionality p138 of the element is 'ltr p138 '.

Otherwise, if the element is a document element, the directionality p138 of the element is 'ltr p138 '.

Otherwise, the directionality p138 of the element is the same as the element's parent element's directionality p138 .

p138
↪ If the element has a parent element and the dir attribute is not in a defined state (i.e. it is not present or has an
invalid value)
The directionality p138 of the element is the same as the element's parent element's directionality p138 .

Note
Since the dir p138 attribute is only defined for HTML elements p44 , it cannot be present on elements from other namespaces. Thus,
elements from other namespaces always just inherit their directionality p138 from their parent element, or, if they don't have one,
default to 'ltr p138 '.

Note
This attribute has rendering requirements involving the bidirectional algorithm p147 .

The directionality of an attribute of an HTML element p44 , which is used when the text of that attribute is to be included in the
rendering in some manner, is determined as per the first appropriate set of steps from the following list:
139
 p140
↪ If the attribute is a directionality-capable attribute and the element's dir p138 attribute is in the auto p138 state
Find the first character (in logical order) of the attribute's value that is of bidirectional character type L, AL, or R. [BIDI] p1217

If such a character is found and it is of bidirectional character type AL or R, the directionality of the attribute p139 is 'rtl p138 '.

Otherwise, the directionality of the attribute p139 is 'ltr p138 '.

↪ Otherwise
The directionality of the attribute p139 is the same as the element's directionality p138 .

The following attributes are directionality-capable attributes:

• abbr p452 on th p451 elements

• alt on area p429 , img p307 , and input p502 elements
• content p159 on meta p158 elements, if the name p159 attribute specifies a metadata name whose value is primarily intended to be
human-readable rather than machine-readable
• label on optgroup p527 , option p529 , and track p371 elements
• placeholder on input p513 and textarea p533 elements
• title p135 on all HTML elements p44

For web developers (non-normative)

document . dir p140 [ = value ]

Returns the html element p113 's dir p138 attribute's value, if any.
Can be set, to either "ltr", "rtl", or "auto" to replace the html element p113 's dir p138 attribute's value.
If there is no html element p113 , returns the empty string and ignores new values.

The dir IDL attribute on an element must reflect p90 the dir p138 content attribute of that element, limited to only known values p90 .

The dir IDL attribute on Document p110 objects must reflect p90 the dir p138 content attribute of the html element p113 , if any, limited to
only known values p90 . If there is no such element, then the attribute must return the empty string and do nothing on setting.

Note
Authors are strongly encouraged to use the dir p138 attribute to indicate text direction rather than using CSS, since that way their
documents will continue to render correctly even in the absence of CSS (e.g. as interpreted by search engines).

Example

This markup fragment is of an IM conversation.

<p dir=auto class="u1"><b><bdi>Student</bdi>:</b> How do you write "What's your name?" in

Arabic?</p>
<p dir=auto class="u2"><b><bdi>Teacher</bdi>:</b> ‫<ما اسمك؟‬/p>
<p dir=auto class="u1"><b><bdi>Student</bdi>:</b> Thanks.</p>
<p dir=auto class="u2"><b><bdi>Teacher</bdi>:</b> That's written "‫را‬
ً ‫"شك‬.</p>
<p dir=auto class="u2"><b><bdi>Teacher</bdi>:</b> Do you know how to write "Please"?</p>
<p dir=auto class="u1"><b><bdi>Student</bdi>:</b> "‫"من فضلك‬, right?</p>

Given a suitable style sheet and the default alignment styles for the p p205 element, namely to align the text to the start edge of the
paragraph, the resulting rendering could be as follows:

140
 As noted earlier, the auto p138 value is not a panacea. The final paragraph in this example is misinterpreted as being right-to-left
text, since it begins with an Arabic character, which causes the "right?" to be to the left of the Arabic text.

3.2.6.5 The style attribute § p14

1

All HTML elements p44 may have the style p141 content attribute set. This is a style attribute as defined by the CSS Style Attributes
specification. [CSSATTR] p1218

In user agents that support CSS, the attribute's value must be parsed when the attribute is added or has its value changed, according
to the rules given for style attributes. [CSSATTR] p1218

However, if the Should element's inline behavior be blocked by Content Security Policy? algorithm returns "Blocked" when executed
upon the attribute's element, "style attribute", and the attribute's value, then the style rules defined in the attribute's value must
not be applied to the element. [CSP] p1217

Documents that use style p141 attributes on any of their elements must still be comprehensible and usable if those attributes were
removed.

Note
In particular, using the style p141 attribute to hide and show content, or to convey meaning that is otherwise not included in the
document, is non-conforming. (To hide and show content, use the hidden p740 attribute.)

For web developers (non-normative)

element . style p141

Returns a CSSStyleDeclaration object for the element's style p141 attribute.

The style IDL attribute is defined in the CSS Object Model (CSSOM) specification. [CSSOM] p1218

Example

In the following example, the words that refer to colors are marked up using the span p270 element and the style p141 attribute to
make those words show up in the relevant colors in visual media.

<p>My sweat suit is <span style="color: green; background:

transparent">green</span> and my eyes are <span style="color: blue;
background: transparent">blue</span>.</p>

3.2.6.6 Embedding custom non-visible data with the data-* p141 attributes §
p14

1
⋰ Support:
Chrome fo
Chrome
A custom data attribute is an attribute in no namespace whose name starts with the string "data-", has at least one character after iOS Safari
the hyphen, is XML-compatible p44 , and contains no ASCII upper alphas. UC Browse
Android
141 Firefox
IE
Opera Min
 Note
All attribute names on HTML elements p44 in HTML documents get ASCII-lowercased automatically, so the restriction on ASCII
uppercase letters doesn't affect such documents.

Custom data attributes p141 are intended to store custom data, state, annotations, and similar, private to the page or application, for
which there are no more appropriate attributes or elements.

These attributes are not intended for use by software that is not known to the administrators of the site that uses the attributes. For
generic extensions that are to be used by multiple independent tools, either this specification should be extended to provide the
feature explicitly, or a technology like microdata p704 should be used (with a standardized vocabulary).

Example

For instance, a site about music could annotate list items representing tracks in an album with custom data attributes containing
the length of each track. This information could then be used by the site itself to allow the user to sort the list by track length, or to
filter the list for tracks of certain lengths.

<ol>
<li data-length="2m11s">Beyond The Sea</li>
...
</ol>

It would be inappropriate, however, for the user to use generic software not associated with that music site to search for tracks of a
certain length by looking at this data.

This is because these attributes are intended for use by the site's own scripts, and are not a generic extension mechanism for
publicly-usable metadata.

Example

Similarly, a page author could write markup that provides information for a translation tool that they are intending to use:

<p>The third <span data-mytrans-de="Anspruch">claim</span> covers the case of <span

translate="no">HTML</span> markup.</p>

In this example, the "data-mytrans-de" attribute gives specific text for the MyTrans product to use when translating the phrase
"claim" to German. However, the standard translate p137 attribute is used to tell it that in all languages, "HTML" is to remain
unchanged. When a standard attribute is available, there is no need for a custom data attribute p141 to be used.

Example

In this example, custom data attributes are used to store the result of a feature detection for PaymentRequest, which could be
used in CSS to style a checkout page differently.

<script>
if ('PaymentRequest' in window) {
document.documentElement.dataset.hasPaymentRequest = '';
}
</script>

Here, the data-has-payment-request attribute is effectively being used as a boolean attribute p65 ; it is enough to check the
presence of the attribute. However, if the author so wishes, it could later be populated with some value, maybe to indicate limited
functionality of the feature.

Every HTML element p44 may have any number of custom data attributes p141 specified, with any value.

Authors should carefully design such extensions so that when the attributes are ignored and any associated CSS dropped, the page is
still usable.

142
User agents must not derive any implementation behavior from these attributes or values. Specifications intended for user agents
must not define these attributes to have any meaningful values.

JavaScript libraries may use the custom data attributes p141 , as they are considered to be part of the page on which they are used.
Authors of libraries that are reused by many authors are encouraged to include their name in the attribute names, to reduce the risk of
clashes. Where it makes sense, library authors are also encouraged to make the exact name used in the attribute names customizable,
so that libraries whose authors unknowingly picked the same name can be used on the same page, and so that multiple versions of a
particular library can be used on the same page even when those versions are not mutually compatible.

Example

For example, a library called "DoQuery" could use attribute names like data-doquery-range, and a library called "jJo" could use
attributes names like data-jjo-range. The jJo library could also provide an API to set which prefix to use (e.g.
J.setDataPrefix('j2'), making the attributes have names like data-j2-range).

For web developers (non-normative)

element . dataset p143

Returns a DOMStringMap p143 object for the element's data-* p141 attributes.
Hyphenated names become camel-cased. For example, data-foo-bar="" becomes element.dataset.fooBar.

The dataset IDL attribute provides convenient accessors for all the data-* p141 attributes on an element. On getting, the dataset p143
IDL attribute must return a DOMStringMap p143 whose associated element is this element.

The DOMStringMap p143 interface is used for the dataset p143 attribute. Each DOMStringMap p143 has an associated element.

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
OverrideBuiltins]
interface DOMStringMap {
getter DOMString (DOMString name);
[CEReactions] setter void (DOMString name, DOMString value);
[CEReactions] deleter void (DOMString name);
};

To get a DOMStringMap's name-value pairs, run the following algorithm:

1. Let list be an empty list of name-value pairs.

2. For each content attribute on the DOMStringMap p143 's associated element p143 whose first five characters are the string
"data-" and whose remaining characters (if any) do not include any ASCII upper alphas, in the order that those attributes are
listed in the element's attribute list, add a name-value pair to list whose name is the attribute's name with the first five
characters removed and whose value is the attribute's value.

3. For each name in list, for each U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-) in the name that is followed by an ASCII lower alpha,
remove the U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-) and replace the character that followed it by the same character converted
to ASCII uppercase.

4. Return list.

The supported property names on a DOMStringMap p143 object at any instant are the names of each pair returned from getting the
DOMStringMap's name-value pairs p143 at that instant, in the order returned.

To determine the value of a named property name for a DOMStringMap p143 , return the value component of the name-value pair whose
name component is name in the list returned from getting the DOMStringMap's name-value pairs p143 .

To set the value of a new named property or set the value of an existing named property for a DOMStringMap p143 , given a property
name name and a new value value, run the following steps:

1. If name contains a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-) followed by an ASCII lower alpha, then throw a "SyntaxError"
DOMException.

143
 2. For each ASCII upper alpha in name, insert a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-) before the character and replace the
character with the same character converted to ASCII lowercase.

3. Insert the string data- at the front of name.

4. If name does not match the XML Name production, throw an "InvalidCharacterError" DOMException.

5. Set an attribute value for the DOMStringMap p143 's associated element p143 using name and value.

To delete an existing named property name for a DOMStringMap p143 , run the following steps:

1. For each ASCII upper alpha in name, insert a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-) before the character and replace the
character with the same character converted to ASCII lowercase.

2. Insert the string data- at the front of name.

3. Remove an attribute by name given name and the DOMStringMap p143 's associated element p143 .

Note
This algorithm will only get invoked by the Web IDL specification for names that are given by the earlier algorithm for getting the
DOMStringMap's name-value pairs p143 . [WEBIDL] p1223

Example

If a Web page wanted an element to represent a space ship, e.g. as part of a game, it would have to use the class p133 attribute
along with data-* p141 attributes:

<div class="spaceship" data-ship-id="92432"

data-weapons="laser 2" data-shields="50%"
data-x="30" data-y="10" data-z="90">
<button class="fire"
onclick="spaceships[this.parentNode.dataset.shipId].fire()">
Fire
</button>
</div>

Notice how the hyphenated attribute name becomes camel-cased in the API.

Example

Given the following fragment and elements with similar constructions:

<img class="tower" id="tower5" data-x="12" data-y="5"

data-ai="robotarget" data-hp="46" data-ability="flames"
src="towers/rocket.png" alt="Rocket Tower">

...one could imagine a function splashDamage() that takes some arguments, the first of which is the element to process:

function splashDamage(node, x, y, damage) {

if (node.classList.contains('tower') && // checking the 'class' attribute
node.dataset.x == x && // reading the 'data-x' attribute
node.dataset.y == y) { // reading the 'data-y' attribute
var hp = parseInt(node.dataset.hp); // reading the 'data-hp' attribute
hp = hp - damage;
if (hp < 0) {
hp = 0;
node.dataset.ai = 'dead'; // setting the 'data-ai' attribute
delete node.dataset.ability; // removing the 'data-ability' attribute
}
node.dataset.hp = hp; // setting the 'data-hp' attribute
}
}

144
3.2.7 The innerText p145 IDL attribute §
p14

5
⋰ Support:
Chrome fo
For web developers (non-normative) Chrome
iOS Safari

p145 UC Browse
element . innerText [ = value ] Android
Firefox
Returns the element's text content "as rendered". IE
Opera Min
Can be set, to replace the element's children with the given value, but with line breaks converted to br p270 elements. Safari
Samsung
Edge
Opera
Android B

On getting, the innerText attribute must follow these steps: Sou

1. If this element is not being rendered p1129 , or if the user agent is a non-CSS user agent, then return the same value as the
textContent IDL attribute on this element.

Note
This step can produce surprising results, as when the innerText p145 attribute is accessed on an element not being
rendered p1129 , its text contents are returned, but when accessed on an element that is being rendered p1129 , all of its
children that are not being rendered p1129 have their text contents ignored.

2. Let results be the list resulting in running the inner text collection steps p145 with this element. Each item in results will either
be a JavaScript string or a positive integer (a required line break count).

Note
Intuitively, a required line break count item means that a certain number of line breaks appear at that point, but they can
be collapsed with the line breaks induced by adjacent required line break count items, reminiscent to CSS margin-
collapsing.

3. Remove any items from results that are the empty string.

4. Remove any runs of consecutive required line break count items at the start or end of results.

5. Replace each remaining run of consecutive required line break count items with a string consisting of as many U+000A LINE
FEED (LF) characters as the maximum of the values in the required line break count items.

6. Return the concatenation of the string items in results.

The inner text collection steps, given a node node, are as follows:

1. Let items be the result of running the inner text collection steps p145 with each child node of node in tree order, and then
concatenating the results to a single list.

2. If node's computed value of 'visibility' is not 'visible', then return items.

3. If node is not being rendered p1129 , then return items. For the purpose of this step, the following elements must act as
described if the computed value of the 'display' property is not 'none':

◦ select p520 elements have an associated non-replaced inline CSS box whose child boxes include only those of
optgroup p526 and option p528 element child nodes;
◦ optgroup p526 elements have an associated non-replaced block-level CSS box whose child boxes include only those
of option p528 element child nodes; and
◦ option p528 element have an associated non-replaced block-level CSS box whose child boxes are as normal for non-
replaced block-level CSS boxes.

Note
items can be non-empty due to 'display:contents'.

4. If node is a Text node, then for each CSS text box produced by node, in content order, compute the text of the box after
application of the CSS 'white-space' processing rules and 'text-transform' rules, set items to the list of the resulting strings,
and return items. The CSS 'white-space' processing rules are slightly modified: collapsible spaces at the end of lines are
always collapsed, but they are only removed if the line is the last line of the block, or it ends with a br p270 element. Soft
hyphens should be preserved. [CSSTEXT] p1218

5. If node is a br p270 element, then append a string containing a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character to items.

6. If node's computed value of 'display' is 'table-cell', and node's CSS box is not the last 'table-cell' box of its enclosing 'table-
row' box, then append a string containing a single U+0009 CHARACTER TABULATION (tab) character to items.

145
 7. If node's computed value of 'display' is 'table-row', and node's CSS box is not the last 'table-row' box of the nearest ancestor
'table' box, then append a string containing a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character to items.

8. If node is a p p205 element, then append 2 (a required line break count) at the beginning and end of items.

9. If node's used value of 'display' is block-level or 'table-caption', then append 1 (a required line break count) at the beginning
and end of items. [CSSDISPLAY] p1218

Note
Floats and absolutely-positioned elements fall into this category.

10. Return items.

Note
Note that descendant nodes of most replaced elements (e.g., textarea p530 , input p476 , and video p365 — but not button p518 ) are not
rendered by CSS, strictly speaking, and therefore have no CSS boxes for the purposes of this algorithm.

This algorithm is amenable to being generalized to work on ranges. Then we can use it as the basis for Selection's stringifier and
maybe expose it directly on ranges. See Bugzilla bug 10583.

On setting, the innerText p145 attribute must follow these steps:

1. Let document be this element's node document.

2. Let fragment be a new DocumentFragment object whose node document is document.

3. Let input be the given value.

4. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

5. Let text be the empty string.

6. While position is not past the end of input:

1. Collect a sequence of code points that are not U+000A LINE FEED (LF) or U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)
characters from input given position. Set text to the collected characters.

2. If text is not the empty string, then append a new Text node whose data is text and node document is document
to fragment.

3. While position is not past the end of input, and the character at position is either a U+000A LINE FEED (LF) or
U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) character:

1. If the character at position is a U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) character and the next character is a
U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character, then advance position to the next character in input.

2. Advance position to the next character in input.

3. Append the result of creating an element given document, br p270 , and the HTML namespace to fragment.

7. Replace all with fragment within this element.

3.2.8 Requirements relating to the bidirectional algorithm § p14

6

3.2.8.1 Authoring conformance criteria for bidirectional-algorithm formatting characters § p14

6

p128 p44 p125

Text content in HTML elements with Text nodes in their contents , and text in attributes of HTML elements p44 that allow free-
form text, may contain characters in the ranges U+202A to U+202E and U+2066 to U+2069 (the bidirectional-algorithm formatting
characters). [BIDI] p1217

Note
Authors are encouraged to use the dir p138 attribute, the bdo p269 element, and the bdi p268 element, rather than maintaining the
bidirectional-algorithm formatting characters manually. The bidirectional-algorithm formatting characters interact poorly with CSS.

146
3.2.8.2 User agent conformance criteria § p14
7

User agents must implement the Unicode bidirectional algorithm to determine the proper ordering of characters when rendering
documents and parts of documents. [BIDI] p1217

The mapping of HTML to the Unicode bidirectional algorithm must be done in one of three ways. Either the user agent must implement
CSS, including in particular the CSS 'unicode-bidi', 'direction', and 'content' properties, and must have, in its user agent style sheet, the
rules using those properties given in this specification's rendering p1129 section, or, alternatively, the user agent must act as if it
implemented just the aforementioned properties and had a user agent style sheet that included all the aforementioned rules, but
without letting style sheets specified in documents override them, or, alternatively, the user agent must implement another styling
language with equivalent semantics. [CSSGC] p1218

The following elements and attributes have requirements defined by the rendering p1129 section that, due to the requirements in this
section, are requirements on all user agents (not just those that support the suggested default rendering p47 ):

• dir p138 attribute

• bdi p268 element
• bdo p269 element
• br p270 element
• pre p209 element
• textarea p530 element
• wbr p271 element

3.2.9 Requirements related to ARIA and to platform accessibility APIs § p14

7

User agent requirements for implementing Accessibility API semantics on HTML elements p44 are defined in HTML Accessibility API
Mappings. [HTMLAAM] p1219

Conformance checker requirements for checking use of ARIA role p60 and aria-* p60 attributes on HTML elements p44 are defined in ARIA
in HTML. [ARIAHTML] p1217

147
 4 The elements of HTML § p14
8

4.1 The document element § p14

4.1.1 The html element § p14

8

Categories p124 :
None.

Contexts in which this element can be used p125 :

As document's document element.
Wherever a subdocument fragment is allowed in a compound document.

Content model p125 :

A head p149 element followed by a body p171 element.

Tag omission in text/html p125 :

An html p148 element's start tag p1008 can be omitted if the first thing inside the html p148 element is not a comment p1017 .
An html p148 element's end tag p1009 can be omitted if the html p148 element is not immediately followed by a comment p1017 .

Content attributes p125 :

Global attributes p132
manifest p148 — Application cache manifest p845

DOM interface p125 :

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
HTMLConstructor]
interface HTMLHtmlElement : HTMLElement {};

The html p148 element represents p120 the root of an HTML document.

Authors are encouraged to specify a lang p136 attribute on the root html p148 element, giving the document's language. This aids speech
synthesis tools to determine what pronunciations to use, translation tools to determine what rules to use, and so forth.

The manifest attribute gives the address of the document's application cache p845 manifest p845 , if there is one. If the attribute is
present, the attribute's value must be a valid non-empty URL potentially surrounded by spaces p86 .

The manifest p148 attribute is part of the legacy "offline Web applications p842 " feature, which is in the process of being
removed from the Web platform. (This is a long process that takes many years.) Using the manifest p148 attribute at this time
is highly discouraged. Use service workers instead. [SW] p1223

The manifest p148 attribute only has an effect p859 during the early stages of document load. Changing the attribute dynamically thus
has no effect (and thus, no DOM API is provided for this attribute).

Note
For the purposes of application cache selection p859 , later base p151 elements cannot affect the parsing of URLs p86 in manifest p148
attributes, as the attributes are processed before those elements are seen.

Note
The window.applicationCache p862 IDL attribute provides scripted access to the offline application cache p845 mechanism.

Example

The html p148 element in the following example declares that the document's language is English.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

148
 <head>
<title>Swapping Songs</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Swapping Songs</h1>
<p>Tonight I swapped some of the songs I wrote with some friends, who
gave me some of the songs they wrote. I love sharing my music.</p>
</body>
</html>

4.2 Document metadata § p14

9

4.2.1 The head element § p14

9

Categories p124 :
None.

Contexts in which this element can be used p125 :

As the first element in an html p148 element.

Content model p125 :

If the document is an iframe srcdoc document p348 or if title information is available from a higher-level protocol: Zero or more
elements of metadata content p127 , of which no more than one is a title p150 element and no more than one is a base p151
element.
Otherwise: One or more elements of metadata content p127 , of which exactly one is a title p150 element and no more than one is
a base p151 element.

Tag omission in text/html p125 :

A head p149 element's start tag p1008 can be omitted if the element is empty, or if the first thing inside the head p149 element is an
element.
A head p149 element's end tag p1009 can be omitted if the head p149 element is not immediately followed by ASCII whitespace or a
comment p1017 .

Content attributes p125 :

Global attributes p132

DOM interface p125 :

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
HTMLConstructor]
interface HTMLHeadElement : HTMLElement {};

The head p149 element represents p120 a collection of metadata for the Document p110 .

Example

The collection of metadata in a head p149 element can be large or small. Here is an example of a very short one:

<!doctype html>
<html lang=en>
<head>
<title>A document with a short head</title>
</head>
<body>
...

Here is an example of a longer one:

149
 <!DOCTYPE HTML>
<HTML LANG="EN">
<HEAD>
<META CHARSET="UTF-8">
<BASE HREF="https://www.example.com/">
<TITLE>An application with a long head</TITLE>
<LINK REL="STYLESHEET" HREF="default.css">
<LINK REL="STYLESHEET ALTERNATE" HREF="big.css" TITLE="Big Text">
<SCRIPT SRC="support.js"></SCRIPT>
<META NAME="APPLICATION-NAME" CONTENT="Long headed application">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
...

Note
The title p150 element is a required child in most situations, but when a higher-level protocol provides title information, e.g. in the
Subject line of an e-mail when HTML is used as an e-mail authoring format, the title p150 element can be omitted.

4.2.2 The title element § p15

0

Categories p124 :
Metadata content p127 .

Contexts in which this element can be used p125 :

In a head p149 element containing no other title p150 elements.

Content model p125 :

Text p128 that is not inter-element whitespace p125 .

Tag omission in text/html p125 :

Neither tag is omissible.

Content attributes p125 :

Global attributes p132

DOM interface p125 :

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
HTMLConstructor]
interface HTMLTitleElement : HTMLElement {
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString text;
};

The title p150 element represents p120 the document's title or name. Authors should use titles that identify their documents even when
they are used out of context, for example in a user's history or bookmarks, or in search results. The document's title is often different
from its first heading, since the first heading does not have to stand alone when taken out of context.

There must be no more than one title p150 element per document.

Note
If it's reasonable for the Document p110 to have no title, then the title p150 element is probably not required. See the head p149
element's content model for a description of when the element is required.

For web developers (non-normative)

title . text p151 [ = value ]

Returns the child text content of the element.

150
 Can be set, to replace the element's children with the given value.

The IDL attribute text must return the child text content of the title p150 element. On setting, it must act the same way as the
textContent IDL attribute.

Example

Here are some examples of appropriate titles, contrasted with the top-level headings that might be used on those same pages.

<title>Introduction to The Mating Rituals of Bees</title>

...
<h1>Introduction</h1>
<p>This companion guide to the highly successful
<cite>Introduction to Medieval Bee-Keeping</cite> book is...

The next page might be a part of the same site. Note how the title describes the subject matter unambiguously, while the first
heading assumes the reader knows what the context is and therefore won't wonder if the dances are Salsa or Waltz:

<title>Dances used during bee mating rituals</title>

...
<h1>The Dances</h1>

The string to use as the document's title is given by the document.title p114 IDL attribute.

User agents should use the document's title when referring to the document in their user interface. When the contents of a title p150
element are used in this way, the directionality p138 of that title p150 element should be used to set the directionality of the document's
title in the user interface.

4.2.3 The base element § p15

1

Categories p124 :
Metadata content p127 .

Contexts in which this element can be used p125 :

In a head p149 element containing no other base p151 elements.

Content model p125 :

Nothing p126 .

Tag omission in text/html p125 :

No end tag p1009 .

Content attributes p125 :

Global attributes p132
href p152 — Document base URL p86
target p152 — Default browsing context p779 for hyperlink p273 navigation p824 and form submission p577

DOM interface p125 :

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
HTMLConstructor]
interface HTMLBaseElement : HTMLElement {
[CEReactions] attribute USVString href;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString target;
};

The base p151 element allows authors to specify the document base URL p86 for the purposes of parsing URLs p86 , and the name of the
default browsing context p779 for the purposes of following hyperlinks p280 . The element does not represent p120 any content beyond this
151
 information.

There must be no more than one base p151 element per document.

A base p151 element must have either an href p152 attribute, a target p152 attribute, or both.

The href content attribute, if specified, must contain a valid URL potentially surrounded by spaces p86 .

A base p151 element, if it has an href p152 attribute, must come before any other elements in the tree that have attributes defined as
taking URLs, except the html p148 element (its manifest p148 attribute isn't affected by base p151 elements).

Note
If there are multiple base p151 elements with href p152 attributes, all but the first are ignored.

The target attribute, if specified, must contain a valid browsing context name or keyword p785 , which specifies which browsing
context p779 is to be used as the default when hyperlinks p273 and forms p470 in the Document p110 cause navigation p824 .

A base p151 element, if it has a target p152 attribute, must come before any elements in the tree that represent hyperlinks p273 .

Note
If there are multiple base p151 elements with target p152 attributes, all but the first are ignored.

To get an element's target, given an a p230 , area p428 , or form p470 element element, run these steps:

1. If element has a target attribute, then return that attribute's value.

2. If element's node document contains a base p151 element with a target p152 attribute, then return the value of the target p152
attribute of the first such base p151 element.

3. Return the empty string.

A base p151 element that is the first base p151 element with an href p152 content attribute in a document tree has a frozen base URL. The
frozen base URL p152 must be immediately p42 set p152 for an element whenever any of the following situations occur:

• The base p151 element becomes the first base p151 element in tree order with an href p152 content attribute in its Document p110 .
• The base p151 element is the first base p151 element in tree order with an href p152 content attribute in its Document p110 , and its
href p152 content attribute is changed.

To set the frozen base URL for an element element:

1. Let document be element's node document.

2. Let urlRecord be the result of parsing the value of element's href p152 content attribute with document's fallback base URL p86 ,
and document's character encoding. (Thus, the base p151 element isn't affected by itself.)

3. Set element's frozen base URL p152 to document's fallback base URL p86 , if urlRecord is failure or running Is base allowed for
Document? on the resulting URL record p86 and document returns "Blocked", and to urlRecord otherwise.

The href IDL attribute, on getting, must return the result of running the following algorithm:

1. Let document be element's node document.

2. Let url be the value of the href p152 attribute of this element, if it has one, and the empty string otherwise.

3. Let urlRecord be the result of parsing url with document's fallback base URL p86 , and document's character encoding. (Thus,
the base p151 element isn't affected by other base p151 elements or itself.)

4. If urlRecord is failure, return url.

5. Return the serialization of urlRecord.

The href p152 IDL attribute, on setting, must set the href p152 content attribute to the given new value.

The target IDL attribute must reflect p90 the content attribute of the same name.

Example
152
 In this example, a base p151 element is used to set the document base URL p86 :

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>This is an example for the <base> element</title>
<base href="https://www.example.com/news/index.html">
</head>
<body>
<p>Visit the <a href="archives.html">archives</a>.</p>
</body>
</html>

The link in the above example would be a link to "https://www.example.com/news/archives.html".

4.2.4 The link element § p15 ⋰ Spec bug

3

Categories p124 :
Metadata content p127 .
If the element is allowed in the body p154 : flow content p128 .
If the element is allowed in the body p154 : phrasing content p128 .

Contexts in which this element can be used p125 :

Where metadata content p127 is expected.
In a noscript p608 element that is a child of a head p149 element.
If the element is allowed in the body p154 : where phrasing content p128 is expected.

Content model p125 :

Nothing p126 .

Tag omission in text/html p125 :

No end tag p1009 .

Content attributes p125 :

Global attributes p132
href p154 — Address of the hyperlink p273
crossorigin p154 — How the element handles crossorigin requests
rel p154 — Relationship between the document containing the hyperlink p273 and the destination resource
media p155 — Applicable media
integrity p155 — Integrity metadata used in Subresource Integrity checks [SRI] p1223
hreflang p155 — Language of the linked resource
type p155 — Hint for the type of the referenced resource
referrerpolicy p155 — Referrer policy for fetches initiated by the element
sizes p155 — Sizes of the icons (for rel p154 ="icon p288 ")
as p155 — Potential destination for a preload request (for rel p154 ="preload p293 " and rel p154 ="modulepreload p290 ")
color p156 — Color to use when customizing a site's icon (for rel p154 ="mask-icon")
Also, the title p155 attribute has special semantics p155 on this element: Title of the link; CSS style sheet set name.

DOM interface p125 :

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
HTMLConstructor]
interface HTMLLinkElement : HTMLElement {
[CEReactions] attribute USVString href;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString? crossOrigin;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString rel;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString as; // (default "")
[SameObject, PutForwards=value] readonly attribute DOMTokenList relList;

153
 [CEReactions] attribute DOMString media;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString integrity;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString hreflang;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString type;
[SameObject, PutForwards=value] readonly attribute DOMTokenList sizes;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString referrerPolicy;
};
HTMLLinkElement includes LinkStyle;

The link p153 element allows authors to link their document to other resources.

The destination of the link(s) is given by the href attribute, which must be present and must contain a valid non-empty URL potentially
surrounded by spaces p86 . If the href p154 attribute is absent, then the element does not define a link.

The crossorigin attribute is a CORS settings attribute p88 . It is intended for use with external resource links p273 .

The types of link indicated (the relationships) are given by the value of the rel attribute, which, if present, must have a value that is a
set of space-separated tokens p84 . The allowed keywords and their meanings p283 are defined in a later section. If the rel p154 attribute is
absent, has no keywords, or if none of the keywords used are allowed according to the definitions in this specification, then the
element does not create any links.

rel p154 's supported tokens are the keywords defined in HTML link types p283 which are allowed on link p153 elements, impact the
processing model, and are supported by the user agent. The possible supported tokens are alternate p285 , dns-prefetch p287 , icon p288 ,
modulepreload p290 , next p297 , pingback p292 , preconnect p293 , prefetch p293 , preload p293 , prerender p293 , search p293 , and stylesheet p294 .
rel p154 's supported tokens must only include the tokens from this list that the user agent implements the processing model for.

Note
Theoretically a user agent could support the processing model for the canonical p287 keyword — if it were a search engine that
executed JavaScript. But in practice that's quite unlikely. So in most cases, canonical p287 ought not be included in rel p154 's
supported tokens.

A link p153 element must have either a rel p154 attribute or an itemprop p712 attribute, but not both.

If a link p153 element has an itemprop p712 attribute, or has a rel p154 attribute that contains only keywords that are body-ok p284 , then the
element is said to be allowed in the body. This means that the element can be used where phrasing content p128 is expected.

Note
If the rel p154 attribute is used, the element can only sometimes be used in the body p171 of the page. When used with the
itemprop p712 attribute, the element can be used both in the head p149 element and in the body p171 of the page, subject to the
constraints of the microdata model.

Two categories of links can be created using the link p153 element: Links to external resources p273 and hyperlinks p273 . The link types
section p283 defines whether a particular link type is an external resource or a hyperlink. One link p153 element can create multiple links
(of which some might be external resource links p273 and some might be hyperlinks p273 ); exactly which and how many links are created
depends on the keywords given in the rel p154 attribute. User agents must process the links on a per-link basis, not a per-element basis.

Note
Each link created for a link p153 element is handled separately. For instance, if there are two link p153 elements with
rel="stylesheet", they each count as a separate external resource, and each is affected by its own attributes independently.
Similarly, if a single link p153 element has a rel p154 attribute with the value next stylesheet, it creates both a hyperlink p273 (for
the next p297 keyword) and an external resource link p273 (for the stylesheet p294 keyword), and they are affected by other attributes
(such as media p155 or title p155 ) differently.

Example

For example, the following link p153 element creates two hyperlinks p273 (to the same page):

<link rel="author license" href="/about">

154
 The two links created by this element are one whose semantic is that the target page has information about the current page's
author, and one whose semantic is that the target page has information regarding the license under which the current page is
provided.

Note
Hyperlinks p273 created with the link p153 element and its rel p154 attribute apply to the whole document. This contrasts with the
rel p274 attribute of a p230 and area p428 elements, which indicates the type of a link whose context is given by the link's location
within the document.

The exact behavior for links to external resources p273 depends on the exact relationship, as defined for the relevant link type p283 .

The media attribute says which media the resource applies to. The value must be a valid media query list p85 .

The integrity attribute represents the integrity metadata for requests which this element is responsible for. The value is text. The
attribute must not be specified on link p153 elements that do not have a rel p154 attribute that contains the stylesheet p294 keyword.
[SRI] p1223

The hreflang attribute on the link p153 element has the same semantics as the hreflang attribute on the a element p274 .

The type attribute gives the MIME type of the linked resource. It is purely advisory. The value must be a valid MIME type string.

For external resource links p273 , the type p155 attribute is used as a hint to user agents so that they can avoid fetching resources they do
not support.

The referrerpolicy attribute is a referrer policy attribute p89 . It is intended for use with external resource links p273 , where it helps set
the referrer policy used when obtaining p157 the external resource. [REFERRERPOLICY] p1221 .

The title attribute gives the title of the link. With one exception, it is purely advisory. The value is text. The exception is for style
sheet links that are in a document tree, for which the title p155 attribute defines CSS style sheet sets.

Note
The title p155 attribute on link p153 elements differs from the global title p135 attribute of most other elements in that a link
without a title does not inherit the title of the parent element: it merely has no title.

The sizes attribute gives the sizes of icons for visual media. Its value, if present, is merely advisory. User agents may use the value to
decide which icon(s) to use if multiple icons are available. If specified, the attribute must have a value that is an unordered set of
unique space-separated tokens p84 which are ASCII case-insensitive. Each value must be either an ASCII case-insensitive match for the
string "any p288 ", or a value that consists of two valid non-negative integers p66 that do not have a leading U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0)
character and that are separated by a single U+0078 LATIN SMALL LETTER X or U+0058 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X character. The
attribute must not be specified on link p153 elements that do not have a rel p154 attribute that specifies the icon p288 keyword or the
apple-touch-icon keyword.

Note
The apple-touch-icon keyword is a registered extension to the predefined set of link types p297 , but user agents are not required
to support it in any way.

The as attribute specifies the potential destination for a preload request for the resource given by the href p154 attribute. It is an
enumerated attribute p65 . Each potential destination is a keyword for this attribute, mapping to a state of the same name. The attribute
must be specified on link p153 elements that have a rel p154 attribute that contains the preload p293 keyword. It may be specified on
link p153 elements that have a rel p154 attribute that contains the modulepreload p290 keyword; in such cases it must have a value which
is a script-like destination. For other link p153 elements, it must not be specified.

The processing model for how the as p155 attribute is used is given in the steps to obtain the resource, for for preload links p157 and for
modulepreload links p290 , respectively.

Note
The attribute does not have a missing value default p65 or invalid value default p65 , meaning that invalid or missing values for the

155
 attribute map to no state. This is accounted for in the processing model. For preload p293 links, both conditions are an error; for
modulepreload p290 links, a missing value will be treated as "script".

The color attribute is used with the mask-icon link type. The attribute must not be specified on link p153 elements that do not have a
rel p154 attribute that contains the mask-icon keyword. The value must be a string that matches the CSS <color> production, defining
a suggested color that user agents can use to customize the display of the icon that the user sees when they pin your site.

Note
This specification does not have any user agent requirements for the color p156 attribute.

Note
The mask-icon keyword is a registered extension to the predefined set of link types p297 , but user agents are not required to
support it in any way.

The IDL attributes href, hreflang, integrity, media, rel, sizes, and type each must reflect p90 the respective content attributes of
the same name.

Note
There is no reflecting IDL attribute for the color p156 attribute, but this might be added later.

The as IDL attribute must reflect p90 the as p155 content attribute, limited to only known values p90 .

The crossOrigin IDL attribute must reflect p90 the crossorigin p154 content attribute, limited to only known values p90 .

The referrerPolicy IDL attribute must reflect p90 the referrerpolicy p155 content attribute, limited to only known values p90 .

The relList IDL attribute must reflect p90 the rel p154 content attribute.

4.2.4.1 Processing the media p155 attribute §

p15

p273 p155
If the link is a hyperlink then the media attribute is purely advisory, and describes for which media the document in question
was designed.

However, if the link is an external resource link p273 , then the media p155 attribute is prescriptive. The user agent must apply the external
resource when the media p155 attribute's value matches the environment p85 and the other relevant conditions apply, and must not apply
it otherwise.

The default, if the media p155 attribute is omitted, is "all", meaning that by default links apply to all media.

Note
The external resource might have further restrictions defined within that limit its applicability. For example, a CSS style sheet
might have some @media blocks. This specification does not override such further restrictions or requirements.

4.2.4.2 Processing the type p155 attribute §

p15

p155
If the type attribute is present, then the user agent must assume that the resource is of the given type (even if that is not a valid
MIME type string, e.g. the empty string). If the attribute is omitted, but the external resource link p273 type has a default type defined,
then the user agent must assume that the resource is of that type. If the UA does not support the given MIME type for the given link
relationship, then the UA should not obtain p157 the resource; if the UA does support the given MIME type for the given link relationship,
then the UA should obtain p157 the resource at the appropriate time as specified for the external resource link p273 's particular type. If the
attribute is omitted, and the external resource link p273 type does not have a default type defined, but the user agent would obtain p157
the resource if the type was known and supported, then the user agent should obtain p157 the resource under the assumption that it will
be supported.

User agents must not consider the type p155 attribute authoritative — upon fetching the resource, user agents must not use the type p155
156
attribute to determine its actual type. Only the actual type (as defined in the next paragraph) is used to determine whether to apply
the resource, not the aforementioned assumed type.

If the external resource link p273 type defines rules for processing the resource's Content-Type metadata p87 , then those rules apply.
Otherwise, if the resource is expected to be an image, user agents may apply the image sniffing rules, with the official type being the
type determined from the resource's Content-Type metadata p87 , and use the resulting computed type of the resource as if it was the
actual type. Otherwise, if neither of these conditions apply or if the user agent opts not to apply the image sniffing rules, then the user
agent must use the resource's Content-Type metadata p87 to determine the type of the resource. If there is no type metadata, but the
external resource link p273 type has a default type defined, then the user agent must assume that the resource is of that type.

Note
The stylesheet p294 link type defines rules for processing the resource's Content-Type metadata p87 .

Once the user agent has established the type of the resource, the user agent must apply the resource if it is of a supported type and
the other relevant conditions apply, and must ignore the resource otherwise.

Example

If a document contains style sheet links labeled as follows:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="A" type="text/plain">

<link rel="stylesheet" href="B" type="text/css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="C">

...then a compliant UA that supported only CSS style sheets would fetch the B and C files, and skip the A file (since text/plain is
not the MIME type for CSS style sheets).

For files B and C, it would then check the actual types returned by the server. For those that are sent as text/css p1215 , it would
apply the styles, but for those labeled as text/plain, or any other type, it would not.

If one of the two files was returned without a Content-Type p87 metadata, or with a syntactically incorrect type like Content-
Type: "null", then the default type for stylesheet p294 links would kick in. Since that default type is text/css p1215 , the style sheet
would nonetheless be applied.

4.2.4.3 Obtaining a resource from a link p153 element §

p15

For external resources that are represented in the DOM (for example, style sheets), the DOM representation must be made available
(modulo cross-origin restrictions) even if the resource is not applied. To obtain the resource, the user agent must run the following
steps:

1. If the href p154 attribute's value is the empty string, then return.

2. Parse p86 the URL given by the href p154 attribute, relative to the element's node document. If that fails, then return.
Otherwise, let url be the resulting URL record p86 .

3. Let corsAttributeState be the current state of the element's crossorigin p154 content attribute.

4. Let request be the result of creating a potential-CORS request p87 given url, the empty string, and corsAttributeState.

5. Set request's client to the link p153 element's node document's Window p790 object's environment settings object p867 .

6. Set request's cryptographic nonce metadata to the current value of the link p153 element's [[CryptographicNonce]] p89 internal
slot.

7. Set request's integrity metadata to the current value of the link p153 element's integrity p155 content attribute.

8. Set request's referrer policy to the current state of the link p153 element's referrerpolicy p155 attribute.

9. If the rel p154 attribute contains the preload p293 keyword, then:

1. Let as be the current state of the as p155 attribute.

2. If as is no state, then return.

157
 3. Set request's destination to the result of translating as.

10. Fetch request.

User agents may opt to only try to obtain such resources when they are needed, instead of pro-actively fetching all the external
resources that are not applied.

The semantics of the protocol used (e.g. HTTP) must be followed when fetching external resources. (For example, redirects will be
followed and 404 responses will cause the external resource to not be applied.)

Once the attempts to obtain the resource and its critical subresources p44 are complete, the user agent must, if the loads were
successful, queue a task p892 to fire an event named load p1213 at the link p153 element, or, if the resource or one of its critical
subresources p44 failed to completely load for any reason (e.g. DNS error, HTTP 404 response, a connection being prematurely closed,
unsupported Content-Type), queue a task p892 to fire an event named error p1213 at the link p153 element. Non-network errors in
processing the resource or its subresources (e.g. CSS parse errors, PNG decoding errors) are not failures for the purposes of this
paragraph.

The task source p892 for these tasks p892 is the DOM manipulation task source p896 .

Unless otherwise specified for a given rel p154 keyword, the element must delay the load event p1103 of the element's node document
until all the attempts to obtain the resource and its critical subresources p44 are complete. (Resources that the user agent has not yet
attempted to obtain, e.g. because it is waiting for the resource to be needed, do not delay the load event p1103 .)

4.2.4.4 Processing `Link` headers § p15

8

HTTP `Link` headers, if supported, must be assumed to come before any links in the document, in the order that they were given in
the HTTP message. These headers are to be processed according to the rules given in the relevant specifications. [HTTP] p1219
[WEBLINK] p1223

Note
Registration of relation types in HTTP `Link` headers is distinct from HTML link types p283 , and thus their semantics can be different
from same-named HTML types.

4.2.4.5 Providing users with a means to follow hyperlinks created using the link p153 element §
p15

Interactive user agents may provide users with a means to follow the hyperlinks p280 created using the link p153 element, somewhere
within their user interface. The exact interface is not defined by this specification, but it could include the following information
(obtained from the element's attributes, again as defined below), in some form or another (possibly simplified), for each hyperlink p273
created with each link p153 element in the document:

• The relationship between this document and the resource (given by the rel p154 attribute)

• The title of the resource (given by the title p155 attribute).

• The address of the resource (given by the href p154 attribute).

• The language of the resource (given by the hreflang p155 attribute).

• The optimum media for the resource (given by the media p155 attribute).

User agents could also include other information, such as the type of the resource (as given by the type p155 attribute).

The activation behavior of link p153 elements that create hyperlinks p273 is to follow the hyperlink p280 created by the link p153 element.

4.2.5 The meta element § p15

8

Categories p124 :
Metadata content p127 .
If the itemprop p712 attribute is present: flow content p128 .

158
 If the itemprop p712 attribute is present: phrasing content p128 .

Contexts in which this element can be used p125 :

If the charset p159 attribute is present, or if the element's http-equiv p163 attribute is in the Encoding declaration state p164 : in a
head p149 element.
If the http-equiv p163 attribute is present but not in the Encoding declaration state p164 : in a head p149 element.
If the http-equiv p163 attribute is present but not in the Encoding declaration state p164 : in a noscript p608 element that is a child
of a head p149 element.
If the name p159 attribute is present: where metadata content p127 is expected.
If the itemprop p712 attribute is present: where metadata content p127 is expected.
If the itemprop p712 attribute is present: where phrasing content p128 is expected.

Content model p125 :

Nothing p126 .

Tag omission in text/html p125 :

No end tag p1009 .

Content attributes p125 :

Global attributes p132
name p159 — Metadata name
http-equiv p163 — Pragma directive
content p159 — Value of the element
charset p159 — Character encoding declaration p167

DOM interface p125 :

IDL
[Exposed=Window,
HTMLConstructor]
interface HTMLMetaElement : HTMLElement {
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString name;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString httpEquiv;
[CEReactions] attribute DOMString content;
};

The meta p158 element represents p120 various kinds of metadata that cannot be expressed using the title p150 , base p151 , link p153 ,
style p168 , and script p594 elements.

The meta p158 element can represent document-level metadata with the name p159 attribute, pragma directives with the http-equiv p163
attribute, and the file's character encoding declaration p167 when an HTML document is serialized to string form (e.g. for transmission
over the network or for disk storage) with the charset p159 attribute.

Exactly one of the name p159 , http-equiv p163 , charset p159 , and itemprop p712 attributes must be specified.

If either name p159 , http-equiv p163 , or itemprop p712 is specified, then the content p159 attribute must also be specified. Otherwise, it must
be omitted.

The charset attribute specifies the character encoding used by the document. This is a character encoding declaration p167 . If the
attribute is present, its value must be an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string "utf-8".

Note
The charset p159 attribute on the meta p158 element has no effect in XML documents, but is allowed in XML documents in order to
facilitate migration to and from XML.

There must not be more than one meta p158 element with a charset p159 attribute per document.

The content attribute gives the value of the document metadata or pragma directive when the element is used for those purposes.
The allowed values depend on the exact context, as described in subsequent sections of this specification.

If a meta p158 element has a name attribute, it sets document metadata. Document metadata is expressed in terms of name-value pairs,
the name p159 attribute on the meta p158 element giving the name, and the content p159 attribute on the same element giving the value.
The name specifies what aspect of metadata is being set; valid names and the meaning of their values are described in the following
sections. If a meta p158 element has no content p159 attribute, then the value part of the metadata name-value pair is the empty string.
159
 The name and content IDL attributes must reflect p90 the respective content attributes of the same name. The IDL attribute httpEquiv
must reflect p90 the content attribute http-equiv p163 .

4.2.5.1 Standard metadata names § p16

0

This specification defines a few names for the name p159 attribute of the meta p158 element.

Names are case-insensitive, and must be compared in an ASCII case-insensitive manner.

application-name
The value must be a short free-form string giving the name of the Web application that the page represents. If the page is not a
Web application, the application-name p160 metadata name must not be used. Translations of the Web application's name may be
given, using the lang p136 attribute to specify the language of each name.

There must not be more than one meta p158 element with a given language p136 and where the name p159 attribute value is an ASCII
case-insensitive match for application-name p160 per document.

User agents may use the application name in UI in preference to the page's title p150 , since the title might include status messages
and the like relevant to the status of the page at a particular moment in time instead of just being the name of the application.

To find the application name to use given an ordered list of languages (e.g. British English, American English, and English), user
agents must run the following steps:

1. Let languages be the list of languages.

2. Let default language be the language p136 of the Document p110 's document element, if any, and if that language is not
unknown.

3. If there is a default language, and if it is not the same language as any of the languages in languages, append it to
languages.

4. Let winning language be the first language in languages for which there is a meta p158 element in the Document p110 where
the name p159 attribute value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for application-name p160 and whose language p136 is the
language in question.

If none of the languages have such a meta p158 element, then return; there's no given application name.

5. Return the value of the content p159 attribute of the first meta p158 element in the Document p110 in tree order where the
name p159 attribute value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for application-name p160 and whose language p136 is winning
language.

Note
This algorithm would be used by a browser when it needs a name for the page, for instance, to label a bookmark. The
languages it would provide to the algorithm would be the user's preferred languages.

author
The value must be a free-form string giving the name of one of the page's authors.

description
The value must be a free-form string that describes the page. The value must be appropriate for use in a directory of pages, e.g. in
a search engine. There must not be more than one meta p158 element where the name p159 attribute value is an ASCII case-insensitive
match for description p160 per document.

generator
The value must be a free-form string that identifies one of the software packages used to generate the document. This value must
not be used on pages whose markup is not generated by software, e.g. pages whose markup was written by a user in a text editor.

Example
Here is what a tool called "Frontweaver" could include in its output, in the page's head p149 element, to identify itself as the tool
used to generate the page:

160
 <meta name=generator content="Frontweaver 8.2">

keywords
The value must be a set of comma-separated tokens p85 , each of which is a keyword relevant to the page.

Example
This page about typefaces on British motorways uses a meta p158 element to specify some keywords that users might use to look
for the page:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en-GB">
<head>
<title>Typefaces on UK motorways</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="british,type face,font,fonts,highway,highways">
</head>
<body>
...

Note
Many search engines do not consider such keywords, because this feature has historically been used unreliably and even
misleadingly as a way to spam search engine results in a way that is not helpful for users.

To obtain the list of keywords that the author has specified as applicable to the page, the user agent must run the following steps:

1. Let keywords be an empty list.

2. For each meta p158 element with a name p159 attribute and a content p159 attribute and where the name p159 attribute value is
an ASCII case-insensitive match for keywords p161 :

1. Split the value of the element's content attribute on commas.

2. Add the resulting tokens, if any, to keywords.

3. Remove any duplicates from keywords.

4. Return keywords. This is the list of keywords that the author has specified as applicable to the page.

User agents should not use this information when there is insufficient confidence in the reliability of the value.

Example
For instance, it would be reasonable for a content management system to use the keyword information of pages within the
system to populate the index of a site-specific search engine, but a large-scale content aggregator that used this information
would likely find that certain users would try to game its ranking mechanism through the use of inappropriate keywords.

referrer
The value must be a referrer policy, which defines the default referrer policy for the Document p110 . [REFERRERPOLICY] p1221

If any meta p158 elements are inserted into the document p44 or removed from the document p44 , or existing meta p158 elements have
their name p159 or content p159 attributes changed, user agents must run the following algorithm:

1. Let candidate elements be the list of all meta p158 elements that meet the following criteria, in tree order:

◦ The element is in a document tree

◦ The element has a name p159 attribute, whose value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for referrer p161
◦ The element has a content p159 attribute, whose value is not the empty string
◦ The element is a child of the head element p114 of the document

2. For each element in candidate elements:

1. Let value be the value of element's content p159 attribute, converted to ASCII lowercase.

2. If value is one of the values given in the first column of the following table, then set value to the value given in
the second column:
161
 Legacy value Referrer policy

never no-referrer
default no-referrer-when-downgrade
always unsafe-url
origin-when-crossorigin origin-when-cross-origin

3. If value is a referrer policy, then set element's node document's referrer policy p111 to policy.

Note
The fact that these steps are applied for each element enables deployment of fallback values for older user agents.
[REFERRERPOLICY] p1221

theme-color
The value must be a string that matches the CSS <color> production, defining a suggested color that user agents should use to
customize the display of the page or of the surrounding user interface. For example, a browser might color the page's title bar with
the specified value, or use it as a color highlight in a tab bar or task switcher.

There must not be more than one meta p158 element with its name p159 attribute value set to an ASCII case-insensitive match for
theme-color p162 per document.

Example
This standard itself uses "WHATWG green" as its theme color:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>HTML Standard</title>
<meta name="theme-color" content="#3c790a">
...

To obtain a page's theme color, user agents must run the following steps:

1. Let candidate elements be the list of all meta p158 elements that meet the following criteria, in tree order:

◦ The element is in a document tree

◦ The element has a name p159 attribute, whose value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for theme-color p162
◦ The element has a content p159 attribute

2. For each element in candidate elements:

1. Let value be the result of stripping leading and trailing ASCII whitespace from the value of element's content p159
attribute.

2. Let color be the result of parsing p57 value.

3. If color is not failure, then return color.

3. Return nothing (the page has no theme color).

If any meta p158 elements are inserted into the document p44 or removed from the document p44 , or existing meta p158 elements have
their name p159 or content p159 attributes changed, user agents must re-run the above algorithm and apply the result to any affected
UI.

When using the theme color in UI, user agents may adjust it in implementation-specific ways to make it more suitable for the UI in
question. For example, if a user agent intends to use the theme color as a background and display white text over it, it might use a
darker variant of the theme color in that part of the UI, to ensure adequate contrast.
⋰ Support:
color
Chrome fo
Chrome
iOS Safari
UC Browse
4.2.5.2 Other metadata names § p16 Android
2 Firefox
IE
Anyone can create and use their own extensions to the predefined set of metadata names. There is no requirement to register Opera Min
such extensions. Safari
Samsung
Edge
However, a new metadata name should not be created in any of the following cases: Opera
Android B
Sou
• If either the name is a URL, or the value of its accompanying content p159 attribute is a URL; in those cases, registering it as
an extension to the predefined set of link types p297 is encouraged (rather than creating a new metadata name).
162