Terms

The HTML specification uses these words with precise meanings:

attribute

A characteristic quality of an element, other than type or content.

browser

A tool used to read electronic books.

document

For the purposes of this standard, an HTML instance.

element

A component of the hierarchical structure defined by the document type definition; it is identified in a document instance by descriptive markup, usually a start-tag and end-tag.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language.

HTTP

A generic stateless object-oriented protocol, which may be used for many similar tasks by extending the commands, or "methods", used. For example, you might use HTTP for name servers and distributed object-oriented systems, With HTTP, the negotiation of data representation allows systems to be built independent of the development of new representations.

For more information see http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Protocols/HTTP/HTTP2.html.

markup

Text that is added to the data of a document in order to convey information about it. There are four different kinds of markup: descriptive markup (tags), references, markup declarations, and processing instructions.

MIME

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions as defined in Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies, 09/23/1993. (Pages=81) (Format=.txt, .ps) (Obsoletes RFC1341) (Updated by RFC1590).

representation

The encoding of information for interchange. For example, HTML is a representation of hypertext.

rendering

The form of presentation to information to the human reader.

SGML

Standard Generalized Markup Language as defined in ISO 8879:1986, Information Processing Text and Office Systems.

sgmls

An SGML parser by James Clark, jjc@jclark.com, derived from the ARCSGML parser materials which were written by Charles F. Goldfarb. The source is available on the ftp.ifi.uio.no FTP server in the directory /pub/SGML/SGMLS.

tag

Descriptive markup. There are two kinds of tags: start-tag and end-tag.

URI

Universal Resource Identifiers. Currently available by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch in /pub/www/doc/url*.{ps,txt}

W3

The World-Wide Web , a global information initiative. For bootstrap information, telnet info.cern.ch or find documents by ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/doc

Imperatives

may

The implementation is not obliged to follow this in any way.

must

If this is not followed, the implementation does not conform to this specification.

shall

If this is not followed, the implementation does not conform to this specification.

should

If this is not followed, though the implementation officially conforms to the standard, undesirable results may occur in practice.

typical

Typical rendering is described for many elements. This is not a mandatory part of the standard but is given as guidance for designers and to help explain the uses for which the elements were intended.


Preceding Section:
HTML DTD Reference (Level 0)
Following Section: References
Parent Section: HyperText Markup Language
Contents of HyperText Markup Language