Divs question

**Mehok** · 02-07-2008, 08:27 PM

is it common now if you have a div which is not going to contain anything to be done like this

Code:

<div id="" />

instead of this

Code:

<div id=""> </div>

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-08-2008, 12:09 AM

Not if you want it to validate.

If there is no CSS involved, then there is no need for empty id either. An empty div, while not exactly bad mark up will through a warning though. It is best to use as such:

Code:

<div>&nbsp;</div>

**jscheuer1** · 02-08-2008, 03:23 AM

/>

is not any part of HTML.

**Mehok** · 02-08-2008, 10:33 AM

There is CSS but no text or content form the actual html side of things

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-08-2008, 06:48 PM

Well if you have CSS set up for an empty div, then you can use the class or ID still the same

Code:

<div id="empty">&nbsp;</div>

**jscheuer1** · 02-08-2008, 10:14 PM

There is nothing wrong with:

HTML Code:

<div></div>

or with:

HTML Code:

<div id="whatever"></div>

or with:

HTML Code:

<div class="whatever"></div>

regardless of if 'whatever' is defined or not. If you want no class or id associated with the empty tag, use the first option. The only reason that you would need anything in there would be if you are going to use DOM level 2 javascript to replace it. Like:

Code:

documentGetElementById('whatever').firstChild.nodeValue='Hello World';

For simple layout purposes though, an empty tag is fine, and may be styled however you like.

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-08-2008, 10:21 PM

There is nothing wrong with:

technically.. no there isn't, except that with correct validating code it does produce a warning. empty elements such as <p> or <div> are not Strict INvalid, but the warning is there for a reason. Adding a space to the div does nothing to the layout and eliminates the warning

**jscheuer1** · 02-09-2008, 04:16 AM

This validates (W3c - verbose output):

Code:

<!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>
<div id="bull"></div>
</body>
</html>

No warning. Excuse the id, I picked it before I read your post. Another thing, a space shouldn't be a layout problem (except perhaps in IE 6 - maybe even 7 - line height is often given even when there is only a space), but a nbsp entity will be unless the style is set to display:none;. An empty div with its clear property set can often be very advantageous in dealing with prior floats in a container with background, in which case its display property should not be none.

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-09-2008, 04:59 AM

My apologies.. I should have been more clear. HTML 4.01 Strict valid coding does NOT discern empty elements. It is the mark up validation WITH Tidy that will through the error ("Trimming empty <div>" )

As stated, it isn't a problem, but some people care about such things, which is why I mentioned that adding the space will eliminate all of that.

**jscheuer1** · 02-09-2008, 07:11 AM

AFAIK, Tidy isn't a validator. It's a tool for cleaning up your code, right? Empty tags can often be left over from some content that got moved or removed. If that's the only reason for them being there, they should go. I imagine Tidy warns about them for that very reason, and that it is only a warning because there could be a valid reason (as mentioned in my previous post) for their being there.

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