T. R. Valentine wrote:
On 03/12/05, Christian Montoya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If your server is sending the MIME type text/html, then the META
doesn't do anything. You need to change the MIME type being sent out
in the headers, and that is done server side.
The only reason the meta element contains text/html, is so that it
conforms with the syntax of an HTTP header. Since at least the
Content-Type needs to be sent with the HTTP headers (or other higher
level protocol), the MIME type specified in the meta element is
essentially meaningless.
Theoretically, the meta element is supposed to be able to be read by a
server prior to sending the file to determine the HTTP headers to be
sent, but I don't believe any servers in existence, or at least in use,
actually do so.
Browsers will try to determine the encoding from the meta element, if
it's not specified in the HTTP headers, but the HTTP headers must always
take precedence.
Thanks for that explanation. But what about when simply opening the
.html file in a browser, no server involved? Even there I do not see a
difference in IE between the two forms.
When opening from the local file system, browsers typically using the
file extension to determine the MIME type. .html is generally
associated with text/html, and that is the MIME type used.
This is a summary of file extensions and their commonly associated MIME
types:
.xml application/xml (preferred) or text/xml (not recommended)
.xht .xhtml application/xhtml+xml
.htm .html text/html
If you create some files with these extensions and open them up in
Firefox. Then go to Tools > Page Info, and notice where it says 'Type:'
followed by the MIME type used. This info is also available in Opera
and possibly other browsers too, I just can't remember where to find it.
If you create an ill-formed XHTML document, save it as two separate
files: one with .html and the other with .xhtml, and open the up in IE
and Firefox. The results will be something like this:
.html opens normally in any browser
.xhtml
Firefox will report well-formedness errors, page info dialog will
typically show application/xhtml+xml.
IE will either offer a save as dialog or cause it to open in your
default browser (it opens it with Firefox for me, because that's my
default browser, your system may be different)
--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
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