Re: Newbie encoding query

> I see we're back in the should/may/must discussion, but at the very least
> it sounds like HEAD is not optional,

the HEAD _element_ is not optional it has to be there.
The DTD says the content model for HTML is:

> <!ENTITY % html.content "HEAD, BODY">

However because it _must_ be there, the system can tell it's there
without you needing to put any tags in, so both the start and end tag
may be omitted. But (as stated on this list most days) tags are not
elements. Just because you omit both the start and end tags does not
mean that you have omitted the element. On the contrary the element
will be reported as present, by an SGML parser and be able to be queried
by dsssl etc.

> Perhaps in HTML there is such a thing as an implicit (tagless)
> element? :)

quite so, yes (no smiley..)

David

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