• Registered: 2009-01-20
  • Posts: 18

Topic: a quickie about validation

a page on my site fails validation because of this structure:

<table>
<tr>
<td>
<h3>
<a>
...
</a>
</h3>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Can anyone see what is wrong with this. I presumed <a> can nest inside a <h>, and surely there is no probs with placing a <h> inside a table...

Thanks in advance.

  • Gender: Male
  • From: Nashville
  • Registered: 2008-12-22
  • Posts: 3,096

Re: a quickie about validation

depending on the doctype it could fail for all kinds of reasons like no summary="" in the table element, deprecated attributes in the TD or TR elements, etc...  Might be best to post complete code although a link to the page is best.

  • Gender: Male
  • From: Staffordshire, UK
  • Registered: 2009-07-29
  • Posts: 1

Re: a quickie about validation

I agree with user shelfimage. Post a link so we can see it all.:D

Also, unless it's tabular data you're needing to display you really should be using CSS for page layout

  • LSW
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • From: Juneau AK
  • Registered: 2008-12-20
  • Posts: 7,429

Re: a quickie about validation

It is also helpful to post the actual error message.

As well, there are different validators available, keep a couple in favorites. All have message issues, I find that if I am not sure of the message in one... I will run it through another and some times make better sense of the error.

One possible issue could be the H3, although "legal",  you can start a series with something like a H3, but can only follow it with H4, H5, H6. Headers should always start with H1 then H2 etc.

That said, there are times when using CSS, an H1 may be at the top in the final HTML, but in the code it is below another H Tag... this may fail a code validation though right in the end.

So as mentioned above it can be many things and the structure is right... but not enough to see the issue.