Re:

[YTang0648]

In a message dated 11/4/2003 2:31:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 5:18 pm -0500 4/11/03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >  According to the HTML standard (see > <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#h-7.4.4>http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#h-7.4.4 ) > the right way to specify the charset in html is to use the > http-equiv attribute in META tag with a value "Content-Type" and > put the charset value after the "text/html; charset=" in the value > of the content attribute. The HTML specification does not specify > the order between http-equiv and content attribute I believe this part is still true. > nither does it > prohibit other attribute (such as charset=UTF-8 ) to be place. I think this part I was wrong.   Having a charset=UTF-8 in the <META element will make it an "invalid html document". The interesting part is the following in html 4.0.1 http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/appendix/notes.html#h-B.1   [begin of the quote] B.1 Notes on invalid documents This specification does not define how conforming user agents handle general error conditions, including how user agents behave when they encounter elements, attributes, attribute values, or entities not specified in this document. However, to facilitate experimentation and interoperability between implementations of various versions of HTML, we recommend the following behavior: If a user agent encounters an element it does not recognize, it should try to render the element's content. If a user agent encounters an attribute it does not recognize, it should ignore the entire attribute specification (i.e., the attribute and its value). If a user agent encounters an attribute value it doesn't recognize, it should use the default attribute value. If it encounters an undeclared entity, the entity should be treated as character data. We also recommend that user agents provide support for notifying the user of such errors. Since user agents may vary in how they handle error conditions, authors and users must not rely on specific error recovery behavior. [end of quote] So... such html document is an invalid document, and the HTML user agents are recommended to ignore the "charset=", but also are recommended to report to the user about such error. Well then, have it from the horse's mouth: <http://validator.w3.org/> Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser. Line 4, column 14 :there is no attribute "CHARSET" (explain... ). <META charset=UTF-8 http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8">   ================================== Frank Yung-Fong Tang System Architect, I�t�rn�ti�n�l D�v�l�pme�t, AOL Int�r��t�v� S�rvi�es AIM:yungfongta mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:650-937-2913 Yahoo! Msg: frankyungfongtan John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Does your software display Thai language text correctly for Thailand users? -> Basic Conceptof Thai Language linked from Frank Tang's I�t�rn�ti�n�liz�ti�n Secrets Want to translate your English text to something Thailand users can understand ? -> Try English-to-Thai machine translation at http://c3po.links.nectec.or.th/parsit/