A cautionary tale about xhtml validators

I've been continuing to tweak the pages at RealLifeDebt.com and have wanted to ensure that the xhtml coding was all proper and correct. So, logically, I turned to the W3C online validator, but kept hitting this one error:

Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser.

Dave's Answer:

Line 195, column 45: there is no attribute "onClick"
<input type="button" value=" solve " onClick="myPaymentCalc()"

Round and around I went until it dawned on me (thanks to a quick web search) that the problem wasn't that there's no attribute onclick, but that there's no attribute onClick: the 'C' can't be capitalized! I fixed that, and now can happily add:

to the site. But... sheesh, what a poor error message!

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Categorized: HTML, JavaScript and Web Site Programming (Article 3669, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged:
Previous: An experiment in xhtml and css: real-life-debt.com
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Reader Comments To Date: 12

Sven said, on February 11, 2004 3:52 PM:

Whoa -- so that's the solution. After a couple hours with that error message I decided to google for it and promptly found your message up there. Phew. Thanks. :)

Dave Taylor said, on February 11, 2004 6:30 PM:

Glad to help. You might well be interested in a copy of my upcoming book "Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS" (Wiley, coming out in April 2004) wherein I talk at length about why and how to validate pages and style sheets.

Mr. X said, on March 8, 2004 8:42 PM:

Damn... After 20 mn pulling my hair with the validator, I Googled another 20 mn to find your post. Sure enough... I had capitalized the "C"
I hate when I'm that stupid... Thank god you were here to put me back on track. Thanks a ton!

Back to work...

Dave T. said, on March 8, 2004 9:52 PM:

This isn't the first time I've wondered why these validators do such a miserable job of error messages. Seems like instead of just spitting out "INVALID XML STRUCTURE" or something they could actually have some smarts...

Interesting, twenty years ago while working at HP R&D Labs in Palo Alto (across the street from Stanford, actually) I remember reading these excellent research reports out of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center all about what makes a good error message. And here we are, all this time later, and developers still aren't paying attention...

reid said, on May 18, 2005 1:33 PM:

WOW amazing help when i'm coding at 5:30am before my assignment is due in 7 hours. you're a genius. thanks SO MUCH

Heather said, on July 30, 2006 12:44 PM:

Thank you thank you THANK YOU! Stupid capitalized C, wasting an hour of my time...

sidnei dasilva said, on May 3, 2007 2:41 PM:

Thanks so much for this article; I was facing the same problem. W3C actually specifies that in XHTML everything must be lowercase, but I guess I need to find your article to realize this simple thing... thanks!

-Sidnei

OMA said, on June 6, 2007 4:15 AM:

CAUTION!: Dreamweaver 8 automatically capitalizes all onclick, onchange, and such events, in just the very moment you open the file!!! I hate when editors change code without any notice, specially when the changes are wrong, like this.

OMA

John said, on August 22, 2007 6:54 PM:

Well your old article is still helping people, namely me. You just solved my problem in a heart beat.
Thanks for archiving!

Fenix Webmaster said, on August 24, 2007 3:33 PM:

I can't thank you enough and just wish I had searched for the answer hours ago.

Dreamweaver 8 capitalised the onLoad, oClick and onMouseOver on all links in the navigation bar.

Only one more error to fix!

Nitecore said, on September 25, 2008 3:34 PM:

Thank you!

Why does dreamweaver do this?

I think it's time I learnt to code by hand.

john said, on November 12, 2008 8:54 PM:

Oh what good news. Until you open the file in Dreamweaver again...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

A cautionary tale about xhtml validators

Reader Comments To Date: 12

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

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