[thelist] What is DOCTYPE?

[Mark Howells]

> you should use a DOCTYPE at the top of every document.
>
> it does not "automatically" validate the document. However, when using the w3c
> validator, it lets the validator know what to validate against, and it lets
> the browser know what standard to use for rendering.
>
> with Internet Explorer 6, the DOCTYPE determines how the browser should render
> the pages.

The DOCTYPE actually tells *all* browsers how to process the page, but most
browsers before v6 use a default Document Type Definition (DTD) and don't
pay too much attention to the adjustments that a specific HTML 4.01 or XHTML
1.0 DTD include.

With the arrival of the v6 browsers, these DTD rules are being more strictly
applied, as they should be. Older browsers tend to approximate the DTD
rules, rather like the way that you get an approximate translation from
Babelfish*.

Visit the following URL (cut from a DOCTYPE rule) with a browser to see lots
of technical XML-based stuff that the browser recognizes and interprets to
show your HTML page.

<http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd>

Regards
Mark Howells
<http://www.mark.ac/evl>

(* It's a good service, I'm just using it as an example)