proper ways for empty link

[Xah Lee]

if i want to have a empty link, which way is more proper?

<a href="">
<a href="#">
<a href="javascrip t:void(0);">

Xah
xa*@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/

[Els]

Xah Lee wrote:

if i want to have a empty link, which way is more proper?

<a href="">
<a href="#">
<a href="javascrip t:void(0);">

How about <a> ?
It's not a link really, but then again, I have no idea why one would
need an empty link...
Can you elaborate on what you are actually trying to achieve?

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Jukka K. Korpela]

"Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org > wrote:

if i want to have a empty link, which way is more proper?
Why would you want to have an empty link?
<a href="">
This is a reference to the document itself.
<a href="#">
This is a reference to the start of the current document.
<a href="javascrip t:void(0);">

This is undefined; javascript: URLs are unregistered.

You could create a self-referencing link, too:
<a name="foo42" href="#foo42">

I suppose you want to have an "empty" link so that you can make something
clickable, triggering some scripted events, without making it a link.
The simple answer is: don't.

Make it a link that points to an address that contains a useful replacement
for the functionality, if it is relevant.

<a href="#nojs" onclick="foo(); return false">
.. . .
<h2 id="nojs">Somet hing</h2>
<p>Put here something useful.</p>

If your piece of HTML code has been _generated_ with JavaScript, so that the
element does not appear if JavaScript is off, use href="#" but make sure your
event handler returns false, so that the href will never be used (it could be
harmful if it caused a movement to the start of the document).

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[VK]

Xah Lee wrote:

if i want to have a empty link, which way is more proper?

<a href="">
<a href="#">
<a href="javascrip t:void(0);">
You may want to read this extensive (and rather intensive) discussion
on this very question here:
<http://groups.google.c om/group/comp.lang.javas cript/browse_frm/thread/4d2e99b2a8bdbbd 2/b595a7a81b0a62a 3>
From the *listed* options I personally would stay with:

<a href="javascrip t:void(myFuncti on())">

<a href=""> and <a href="#"> will lead to page shift/scroll if the page
is long enough on older browsers.

[Matt Kruse]

VK wrote:

From the *listed* options I personally would stay with:

<a href="javascrip t:void(myFuncti on())">

Of the listed options, this is the _worst_.

There is no reason to use this as opposed to:
<a href="javascrip t_required.html " onClick="myFunc tion(); return
false;">link</a>

See "Using onClick in <A> tags" in
http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com/bestpracties/

--
Matt Kruse
http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com
http://www.AjaxToolbox.com

[Gérard Talbot]

Xah Lee a écrit :

if i want to have a empty link, which way is more proper?

<a href="">
<a href="#">
<a href="javascrip t:void(0);">

Xah
xa*@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/

Your question is as logical, coherent as asking
- how to have a table without any table cells
- how to have a paragraph without any content
- how to have some kind of structure without any content or without any
functionality or without any purpose

A link should always be a link otherwise you're misusing such HTML element.

Gérard
--
remove blah to email me

[Lars Eighner]

In our last episode,
<11************ *********@g44g2 000cwa.googlegr oups.com>,
the lovely and talented Xah Lee
broadcast on comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html:

if i want to have a empty link, which way is more proper? <a href="">
<a href="#">
<a href="javascrip t:void(0);">

This question makes no sense. Tell us what it is you are
really trying to do.
--
Lars Eighner us****@larseigh ner.com http://www.larseighner.com/
"Shhh! Be vewwy, vewwy quiet! I'm hunting Muswims!"
- President Elmer Bush

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Gérard Talbot wrote:

Xah Lee a écrit :

if i want to have a empty link, which way is more proper?

- - Your question is as logical, coherent as asking
- how to have a table without any table cells
- how to have a paragraph without any content
- how to have some kind of structure without any content or without any
functionality or without any purpose

Well, logically, it's not quite the same. The question apparently meant
"functional ly empty", i.e. a link that does not work as a link, as
opposite to an element with no content. A link that is empty in the
latter sense, <a href="something "></a>, is syntactically correct but
usually nonsensical - though it might be used to fool search engines,
and there is no law against browsers letting users to follow such a link.

A table without any table cells, on the other hand, is syntactically
incorrect (invalid), since a <table> element must contain at least one
<tr> element, which in turn must contain at least one <th> or <td>
element. The cell could be empty, though (<td></td>).

A paragraph without any content, <p></p>, is syntactically correct,
though the HTML spec explicitly says that it should not be used.
Actually, the common formatting trick is not <p></p> but <p>&nbsp;</p>,
which has content syntactically, but not semantically.

Followups trimmed to ciwah.

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

"Xah Lee" <xa*@xahlee.org > wrote:

<a href="">
This is a reference to the document itself.

As specified in RFC3986, subsection 4.4.

<a href="#">

This is a reference to the start of the current document.

Actually, this known user agents' behavior is not a specified one.

<a href="javascrip t:void(0);">

This is undefined;

It is not, at least by use. `javascript:' URIS are designed to return
(HTML) documents from script code and no known HTML user agent capable
of client-side JS returns a document when the `undefined' value is used.
javascript: URLs are unregistered.

However, they exist. Not to be used for this purpose, though.

BTW: I would call them URIs. We have an unspecified URI scheme here.
AFAIK there is no general registry of URI schemes; there are definitions,
maybe (attempts at) specifications (such as RFCs).

The closest thing to a reference I could find is
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-SCRIPT-TECHS/#js-uri>
PointedEars

[Benjamin Niemann]

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:

javascript: URLs are unregistered.
However, they exist. Not to be used for this purpose, though.

BTW: I would call them URIs.

<javascript:som e(); js_code(2 * 23 / 35);> is certainly not an URI, and I
have never seen JS code properly encoded (and I doubt that there is broad
browser support for this).
We have an unspecified URI scheme here.
AFAIK there is no general registry of URI schemes; there are definitions,
maybe (attempts at) specifications (such as RFCs).

<http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes>
--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/