HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
although most browsers are lenient and ignore the errant end tag. For
example, the
<br>
tag causes a line break; it has no effect otherwise on
the subsequent portion of the document and, hence, does not need an
ending tag.
The HTML tags that do not have corresponding end tags are:
<area>
<base>
<basefont>
<br>
<col>
<frame>
<hr>
<img>
<input>
<isindex>
<link>
<meta>
<param>
XHTML always requires end tags. [
Handling Empty Elements, 16.3.3
]
3.3.6. Omitting Tags
You often see documents in which the author seemingly has forgotten
to include an ending tag, in apparent violation of the HTML and certainly
the XHTML standards. Sometimes even the
<body>
tag is missing. But
your browser doesn't complain, and the document displays just fine.
What gives? The HTML standard lets you omit certain tags or their end-
ings for clarity and ease of preparation. The HTML standard writers
didn't intend the language to be tedious.
