HTML

Question

One of the new doctype declarations can be specified as:

<!doctype html>

But recently I came across one which was slightly different (view source on http://html5boilerplate.com/):

<!doctype html public "">

But I couldn't figure what is it for, public part?

Thanks.

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 20 '11 at 02:30

7

You missed one important character

<!doctype html public "✰">

Inside the quotes is a star character. They like putting it everywhere. Its valid but not in any way useful :P

answered Oct 20 '11 at 02:30

Andrew

The Easter Bunny Strikes Again – Félix Saparelli Oct 20 '11 at 02:34
@Moin yep. their dtd for the page is public and is a star. – Andrew Oct 20 '11 at 02:34
I think so too, it's like a signature or something. but wanted to check, maybe there are some use-cases where it can be useful. But I can't think of any. – Dmitry F Oct 20 '11 at 02:36
1

@DmitryF No use at all, the reason the html5 doctype is ` ` is because that is the minimum that validates in every browser in usage now. And no browser actually cares what is in it, they just check that it is there. – Andrew Oct 20 '11 at 02:40

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:33

1

this is mentioned in the html5boilerplate changelog, do a search for doctype on the page.

Its been done to disable dtd warnings in IDE's like eclipse.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:33

Community

answered Oct 20 '11 at 02:27

Moin Zaman

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 09 '13 at 23:37

0

IE10 needs the PUBLIC "" to properly treat the page as HTML 5 - at least on the Windows 7 version.

edited Mar 09 '13 at 23:37

Ry-

answered Mar 09 '13 at 23:15

Tim Lewis

3

Are you sure about this? What's your source? – Mauricio Scheffer Apr 06 '13 at 22:19
I made the same experience. Without the ````PUBLIC ""```` IE remains in the IE7-Standards Document Mode. – paulroho Sep 23 '14 at 08:03

3 Answers3