encoding of scripts

Hi,
>
using HTML 4.01 (not xhtml), I have recently discovered that this:
>
<script>var x='</script>';</script>
>
is not valid HTML - the fact that there is an end script tag in quotes
causes the parser to stop recognising the script. initially my reaction was
that this is not a surprise because I had failed to HTML encode the script
contents, so my second attempt was this:
>
<script>var x='&lt;/script&gt;';</script>
>
however this it DOES NOT WORK - the variable ends up containing the text
"&lt;/script&gt;"
>
can someone point me at part of the w3c specification that states how script
tags are parsed differently to other tags in HTML.
>
interestingly i have also discovered that this:
>
<script>if (3<5);</script>
>
IS valid html (and seems even to be valid XHTML) even though it is not valid
XML
>
Andy
>
>

can someone point me at part of the w3c specification that states how script
tags are parsed differently to other tags in HTML.

interestingly i have also discovered that this:
>
<script>if (3<5);</script>
>
IS valid html

(and seems even to be valid XHTML) even though it is not valid XML

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html

using HTML 4.01 (not xhtml), I have recently discovered that this:
>
<script>var x='</script>';</script>
>
is not valid HTML - the fact that there is an end script tag in quotes
causes the parser to stop recognising the script.

<script>var x='&lt;/script&gt;';</script>
>
however this it DOES NOT WORK - the variable ends up containing the
text "&lt;/script&gt;"

can someone point me at part of the w3c specification that states how
script tags are parsed differently to other tags in HTML.

interestingly i have also discovered that this:
>
<script>if (3<5);</script>
>
IS valid html

(and seems even to be valid XHTML)

even though it is not valid XML

Scripsit Andy Fish:
>>
The fact that there is an end tag causes that. Quotes do not matter. They
are just data characters in this context.
>>
By HTML 4.01 rules, yes. There the content model is CDATA, which means
that entity references are not recognized, and "&" is just a data
character.
>>
They aren't. The _content_ of the <script_element_ is special. This can
be found in the HTML 4.01 specs simply by looking at the description of
that element; it points to
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-script
which refers to an appendix that explains ways to overcome the "</"
problem, such as prefixing "/" with "\" in JavaScript. In JavaScript, you
could also write
var x='<'+'/script>';
but that looks a bit more hackish.
>>
No it isn't, but that's due to the lack of the type="..." attribute. If
you fix that, then it is valid. That's because the digit "5" isn't a name
start character.
>>
It isn't valid in XHTML, since by XHTML rules, "<" must not appear in any
context as such except as the starting character of a tag.
>
In XHTML, the content model of <scriptis #PCDATA, so _there_ you could
use &lt; to stand for "<". But it's not wise to use XHTML as the delivery
format of a web page, because IE does not support XHTML.
>>
It would be impossible for a document to be non-valid XML if it is valid
XHTML. This immediately follows from the _definition_ of validity.
>
There is a simple way to get rid of such complexities: write your script
into an external file and refer to it via <script type="text/javascript"
src="foo.js"></script>.
>
--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/