W3C

HTML 4.0 Specification Errata

24-April-1998

This document:
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html40-updates/REC-html40-19980424-errata.html
The latest version of the HTML 4.0 specification:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40
This document records known errors in the document:
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424

Please email error reports to www-html-editor@w3.org.

Known Errors

Section 18.2.3
The onfocus and onblur events may also be used with the A and AREA elements.
Section 20
The SGML Declaration for HTML 4.0 must be modified slightly to support hexadecimal numeric character references. The lines:
        DELIM
               GENERAL SGMLREF
               SHORTREF SGMLREF

must be changed to:

        DELIM
               GENERAL SGMLREF
               HCRO "&#38#x" -- 38 is the number for ampersand --
               SHORTREF SGMLREF

And the initial <!SGML "ISO 8879:1986" must be changed to <!SGML "ISO 8879:1986 (WWW)".

Section 21
The HR element should also take the lang and dir attributes. These are noted as being defined elsewhere at the element's definition, but were left out of the DTDs.
Section 21
The OBJECT element's archive attribute is defined in the DTD as taking a value of type %URI". This is incorrect: the value may be a space-separated list of URIs (as indicated in the definition of the attribute and in the DTDs comment).
Section 21
The FORM element's DTD fragment should include a definition for the accept attribute, which is listed in the element's definition. The definition should be the following:

 accept-charset  %Charsets;  #IMPLIED  -- list of supported charsets --

archive attribute is defined
in the DTD as taking a value of type %URI". This is
incorrect: the value may be a space-separated list
of URIs (as indicated in the definition of the
attribute and in the DTDs comment).

Section B.4.1.1
The specification reads, "Blank lines are not permitted." Blank lines are permitted in the robots.txt file, just not within a single "record". Note that the specification doesn't define record.

Further down the page, the specification reads, "There must be exactly one "User-agent" field per record." In fact, there can be more than one User-Agent field in the robots.txt file, just not more than one per record.

For information about search robots, please consult, for example:

Minor typographical errors

Section 2.1.1
The phrase "accessible via the path "/TR/REC-html4/". should end with "/TR/REC-html40/".
Section 13.7.1
In the definition of the height attribute, the phrase "Image and object override" should read "Image and object height override".