My javascript code is making my web page invalid

[Ryan Fitton]

Hi, this javascript code that i am using is making my webpage invalid, the W3C html validator says: "end tag for element "DL" which is not open" document.write("</DL>\n");.

The javascript code is here...

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
//store the quotations in arrays
quotes = new Array(6);
authors = new Array(6);
quotes[0] = "I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.";
authors[0] = "Charles Schulz";
quotes[1] = "Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it.";
authors[1] = "Jack Wagner";
quotes[2] = "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.";
authors[2] = "Mark Twain";
quotes[3] = "The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.";
authors[3] = "Oscar Wilde";
quotes[4] = "There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.";
authors[4] = "David Letterman";
quotes[5] = "Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.";
authors[5] = "Lily Tomlin";
//calculate a random index
index = Math.floor(Math.random() * quotes.length);
//display the quotation
document.write("<DL>\n");
document.write("<DT>" + "\"" + quotes[index] + "\"\n");
document.write("<DD>" + "- " + authors[index] + "\n");
document.write("</DL>\n");
//done
</script>

[pman]

I would suggest that you use "element.innerHTML" instead of "document.write".

Anyways, you need to close the <DT> and <DD> tags. I'm assuming that you are using xhtml strict. Try that first.

document.write("<DT>" + "\"" + quotes[index] + "</DT>");
document.write("<DD>" + "- " + authors[index] + "</DD>");

[Ryan Fitton]

no i am using HTML 4.01 if u want the full html code with the script in is saved as a webpage here.

[pman]

no i am using HTML 4.01 if u want the full html code with the script in is saved as a webpage here.

Okay, I've seen a lot of wired things and this is one of them. You need a "space" when you are closing the </DL> tag. So basically what you need to have is:

document.write("</ DL>\n");

I tried that and it validated fine although the previous warnings are still there. Note that there's a space before "DL".

[Ryan Fitton]

ok thanks for your time

[jscheuer1]

This:

</div>

in a script will almost always cause a validation error. Something like - 'close tag for div tag that is not open'. You can (if it is a part of a string) do:

<\/div>

And that will fix that. However, the standard way to avoid these types of questionable validation calls is to make your script external. Another thing, what's a <DL> anyway? A 'Disordered List' tag? It may be some tag I'm not familiar with, but if it isn't, it is in itself invalid HTML, and to be avoided.

[ruthc]

Hi,

Theya are 'list' codes, like ul li but they apply to definition lists

<DL> Definition list
<DT> Definition term
<DD> Definition definition

You can close the dt and dd tags though I think that's not required, but the dl tag has to be closed. So if you had two terms to be defined it would be

<DL>
<DT>term 1
<DD>definition 1
<DT>term 2
<DD>definition 2
</DL>

Or you could also do

<DL>
<DT>
<DT>
<DD>
<DD>
</DL>

Ruth

[jscheuer1]

OK, cool. So the tags are valid, it's just the closing tags without their slashes escaped that is the problem, or - as I said, make the script external. This (making the script external) will also fix validation 'errors' like 'poorly formed entity' or such for when the javascript logical && is used in code and mistaken by the validator as a broken HTML entity, and potentially countless other little quirks that arise when trying to parse valid javascript as valid HTML.

[BLiZZaRD]

The problem isn't that John. The other tags have to be closed as well (regardless of say so's) and they must be closed first.

Also, DL tags are not fully supported yet, FF1, Opera 8 and IE6 are highest to show any signs of support. It also is only supported in HTML 3.2 and 4.0 (not 0.1) and XHTML1.0. Which may be another problem, along with using XHTML.

Edit:
OP may still have to cancel the forward slash, as well as the other closing tags, I am not sure, it would seem logical.

Alternatively they could also place them inside a paragraph tag <p></p>

[jscheuer1]

Not so on the tag's (other than the DL tag) needing to be closed, I thought that but, at least in ordinary HTML 4.01 strict, this validates:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

</head>
<body>
<DL>
<DT>term 1
<DD>definition 1
<DT>term 2
<DD>definition 2
</DL>
</body>
</html>

So, that much is just like ruthc said.