Network Working Group                                    T. Berners-Lee
Request for Comments: 1866                                      MIT/W3C
Category: Standards Track                                   D. Connolly
                                                          November 1995

                    Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language used
   to create hypertext documents that are platform independent. HTML
   documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are
   appropriate for representing information from a wide range of
   domains. HTML markup can represent hypertext news, mail,
   documentation, and hypermedia; menus of options; database query
   results; simple structured documents with in-lined graphics; and
   hypertext views of existing bodies of information.

   HTML has been in use by the World Wide Web (WWW) global information
   initiative since 1990. This specification roughly corresponds to the
   capabilities of HTML in common use prior to June 1994. HTML is an
   application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing Text and
   Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

   The "text/html" Internet Media Type (RFC 1590) and MIME Content Type
   (RFC 1521) is defined by this specification.

Table of Contents

    1.     Introduction ........................................... 2
    1.1    Scope .................................................. 3
    1.2    Conformance ............................................ 3
    2.     Terms .................................................. 6
    3.     HTML as an Application of SGML .........................10
    3.1    SGML Documents .........................................10
    3.2    HTML Lexical Syntax ................................... 12
    3.3    HTML Public Text Identifiers .......................... 17
    3.4    Example HTML Document ................................. 17
    4.     HTML as an Internet Media Type ........................ 18

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    4.1    text/html media type .................................. 18
    4.2    HTML Document Representation .......................... 19
    5.     Document Structure .................................... 20
    5.1    Document Element: HTML ................................ 21
    5.2    Head: HEAD ............................................ 21
    5.3    Body: BODY ............................................ 24
    5.4    Headings: H1 ... H6 ................................... 24
    5.5    Block Structuring Elements ............................ 25
    5.6    List Elements ......................................... 28
    5.7    Phrase Markup ......................................... 30
    5.8    Line Break: BR ........................................ 34
    5.9    Horizontal Rule: HR ................................... 34
    5.10   Image: IMG ............................................ 34
    6.     Characters, Words, and Paragraphs ..................... 35
    6.1    The HTML Document Character Set ....................... 36
    7.     Hyperlinks ............................................ 36
    7.1    Accessing Resources ................................... 37
    7.2    Activation of Hyperlinks .............................. 38
    7.3    Simultaneous Presentation of Image Resources .......... 38
    7.4    Fragment Identifiers .................................. 38
    7.5    Queries and Indexes ................................... 39
    7.6    Image Maps ............................................ 39
    8.     Forms ................................................. 40
    8.1    Form Elements ......................................... 40
    8.2    Form Submission ....................................... 45
    9.     HTML Public Text ...................................... 49
    9.1    HTML DTD .............................................. 49
    9.2    Strict HTML DTD ....................................... 61
    9.3    Level 1 HTML DTD ...................................... 62
    9.4    Strict Level 1 HTML DTD ............................... 63
    9.5    SGML Declaration for HTML ............................. 64
    9.6    Sample SGML Open Entity Catalog for HTML .............. 65
    9.7    Character Entity Sets ................................. 66
    10.    Security Considerations ............................... 69
    11.    References ............................................ 69
    12.    Acknowledgments ....................................... 71
    12.1   Authors' Addresses .................................... 71
    13.    The HTML Coded Character Set .......................... 72
    14.    Proposed Entities ..................................... 75

1. Introduction

   The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple data format used to
   create hypertext documents that are portable from one platform to
   another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics
   that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range
   of domains.

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   As HTML is an application of SGML, this specification assumes a
   working knowledge of [SGML].

1.1. Scope

   HTML has been in use by the World-Wide Web (WWW) global information
   initiative since 1990. Previously, informal documentation on HTML has
   been available from a number of sources on the Internet. This
   specification brings together, clarifies, and formalizes a set of
   features that roughly corresponds to the capabilities of HTML in
   common use prior to June 1994. A number of new features to HTML are
   being proposed and experimented in the Internet community.

   This document thus defines a HTML 2.0 (to distinguish it from the
   previous informal specifications). Future (generally upwardly
   compatible) versions of HTML with new features will be released with
   higher version numbers.

   HTML is an application of ISO Standard 8879:1986, "Information
   Processing Text and Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup
   Language" (SGML). The HTML Document Type Definition (DTD) is a formal
   definition of the HTML syntax in terms of SGML.

   This specification also defines HTML as an Internet Media
   Type[IMEDIA] and MIME Content Type[MIME] called `text/html'. As such,
   it defines the semantics of the HTML syntax and how that syntax
   should be interpreted by user agents.

1.2. Conformance

   This specification governs the syntax of HTML documents and aspects
   of the behavior of HTML user agents.

1.2.1. Documents

   A document is a conforming HTML document if:

        * It is a conforming SGML document, and it conforms to the
        HTML DTD (see 9.1, "HTML DTD").

            NOTE - There are a number of syntactic idioms that
            are not supported or are supported inconsistently in
            some historical user agent implementations. These
            idioms are identified in notes like this throughout
            this specification.

        * It conforms to the application conventions in this
        specification. For example, the value of the HREF attribute

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        of the  element must conform to the URI syntax.

        * Its document character set includes [ISO-8859-1] and
        agrees with [ISO-10646]; that is, each code position listed
        in 13, "The HTML Coded Character Set" is included, and each
        code position in the document character set is mapped to the
        same character as [ISO-10646] designates for that code
        position.

            NOTE - The document character set is somewhat
            independent of the character encoding scheme used to
            represent a document. For example, the `ISO-2022-JP'
            character encoding scheme can be used for HTML
            documents, since its repertoire is a subset of the
            [ISO-10646] repertoire. The critical distinction is
            that numeric character references agree with
            [ISO-10646] regardless of how the document is
            encoded.

1.2.2. Feature Test Entities

   The HTML DTD defines a standard HTML document type and several
   variations, by way of feature test entities. Feature test entities
   are declarations in the HTML DTD that control the inclusion or
   exclusion of portions of the DTD.

    HTML.Recommended
            Certain features of the language are necessary for
            compatibility with widespread usage, but they may
            compromise the structural integrity of a document. This
            feature test entity selects a more prescriptive document
            type definition that eliminates those features. It is
            set to `IGNORE' by default.

            For example, in order to preserve the structure of a
            document, an editing user agent may translate HTML
            documents to the recommended subset, or it may require
            that the documents be in the recommended subset for
            import.

    HTML.Deprecated
            Certain features of the language are necessary for
            compatibility with earlier versions of the
            specification, but they tend to be used and implemented
            inconsistently, and their use is deprecated. This
            feature test entity enables a document type definition
            that allows these features. It is set to `INCLUDE' by
            default.

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            Documents generated by translation software or editing
            software should not contain deprecated idioms.

1.2.3. User Agents

   An HTML user agent conforms to this specification if:

        * It parses the characters of an HTML document into data
        characters and markup according to [SGML].

            NOTE - In the interest of robustness and
            extensibility, there are a number of widely deployed
            conventions for handling non-conforming documents.
            See 4.2.1, "Undeclared Markup Error Handling" for
            details.

        * It supports the `ISO-8859-1' character encoding scheme and
        processes each character in the ISO Latin Alphabet No. 1 as
        specified in 6.1, "The HTML Document Character Set".

            NOTE - To support non-western writing systems, HTML
            user agents are encouraged to support
            `ISO-10646-UCS-2' or similar character encoding
            schemes and as much of the character repertoire of
            [ISO-10646] as is practical.

        * It behaves identically for documents whose parsed token
        sequences are identical.

        For example, comments and the whitespace in tags disappear
        during tokenization, and hence they do not influence the
        behavior of conforming user agents.

        * It allows the user to traverse (or at least attempt to
        traverse, resources permitting) all hyperlinks from 
        elements in an HTML document.

   An HTML user agent is a level 2 user agent if, additionally:

        * It allows the user to express all form field values
        specified in an HTML document and to (attempt to) submit the
        values as requests to information services.

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2. Terms

    absolute URI
            a URI in absolute form; for example, as per [URL]

    anchor
            one of two ends of a hyperlink; typically, a phrase
            marked as an  element.

    base URI
            an absolute URI used in combination with a relative URI
            to determine another absolute URI.

    character
            An atom of information, for example a letter or a digit.
            Graphic characters have associated glyphs, whereas
            control characters have associated processing semantics.

    character encoding
    scheme
            A function whose domain is the set of sequences of
            octets, and whose range is the set of sequences of
            characters from a character repertoire; that is, a
            sequence of octets and a character encoding scheme
            determines a sequence of characters.

    character repertoire
            A finite set of characters; e.g. the range of a coded
            character set.

    code position
            An integer. A coded character set and a code position
            from its domain determine a character.

    coded character set
            A function whose domain is a subset of the integers and
            whose range is a character repertoire. That is, for some
            set of integers (usually of the form {0, 1, 2, ..., N}
            ), a coded character set and an integer in that set
            determine a character. Conversely, a character and a
            coded character set determine the character's code
            position (or, in rare cases, a few code positions).

    conforming HTML user
    agent
            A user agent that conforms to this specification in its
            processing of the Internet Media Type `text/html'.

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    data character
            Characters other than markup, which make up the content
            of elements.

    document character set
            a coded character set whose range includes all
            characters used in a document. Every SGML document has
            exactly one document character set. Numeric character
            references are resolved via the document character set.

    DTD
            document type definition. Rules that apply SGML to the
            markup of documents of a particular type, including a
            set of element and entity declarations. [SGML]

    element
            A component of the hierarchical structure defined by a
            document type definition; it is identified in a document
            instance by descriptive markup, usually a start-tag and
            end-tag. [SGML]

    end-tag
            Descriptive markup that identifies the end of an
            element. [SGML]

    entity
            data with an associated notation or interpretation; for
            example, a sequence of octets associated with an
            Internet Media Type. [SGML]

    fragment identifier
            the portion of an HREF attribute value following the `#'
            character which modifies the presentation of the
            destination of a hyperlink.

    form data set
            a sequence of name/value pairs; the names are given by
            an HTML document and the values are given by a user.

    HTML document
            An SGML document conforming to this document type
            definition.

    hyperlink
            a relationship between two anchors, called the head and
            the tail. The link goes from the tail to the head. The
            head and tail are also known as destination and source,
            respectively.

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    markup
            Syntactically delimited characters added to the data of
            a document to represent its structure. There are four
            different kinds of markup: descriptive markup (tags),
            references, markup declarations, and processing
            instructions. [SGML]

    may
            A document or user interface is conforming whether this
            statement applies or not.

    media type
            an Internet Media Type, as per [IMEDIA].

    message entity
            a head and body. The head is a collection of name/value
            fields, and the body is a sequence of octets. The head
            defines the content type and content transfer encoding
            of the body. [MIME]

    minimally conforming
    HTML user agent
            A user agent that conforms to this specification except
            for form processing. It may only process level 1 HTML
            documents.

    must
            Documents or user agents in conflict with this statement
            are not conforming.

    numeric character
    reference
            markup that refers to a character by its code position
            in the document character set.

    SGML document
            A sequence of characters organized physically as a set
            of entities and logically into a hierarchy of elements.
            An SGML document consists of data characters and markup;
            the markup describes the structure of the information
            and an instance of that structure. [SGML]

    shall
            If a document or user agent conflicts with this
            statement, it does not conform to this specification.

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    should
            If a document or user agent conflicts with this
            statement, undesirable results may occur in practice
            even though it conforms to this specification.

    start-tag
            Descriptive markup that identifies the start of an
            element and specifies its generic identifier and
            attributes. [SGML]

    syntax-reference
    character set
            A coded character set whose range includes all
            characters used for markup; e.g. name characters and
            delimiter characters.

    tag
            Markup that delimits an element. A tag includes a name
            which refers to an element declaration in the DTD, and
            may include attributes. [SGML]

    text entity
            A finite sequence of characters. A text entity typically
            takes the form of a sequence of octets with some
            associated character encoding scheme, transmitted over
            the network or stored in a file. [SGML]

    typical
            Typical processing is described for many elements. This
            is not a mandatory part of the specification but is
            given as guidance for designers and to help explain the
            uses for which the elements were intended.

    URI
            A Uniform Resource Identifier is a formatted string that
            serves as an identifier for a resource, typically on the
            Internet. URIs are used in HTML to identify the anchors
            of hyperlinks. URIs in common practice include Uniform
            Resource Locators (URLs)[URL] and Relative URLs
            [RELURL].

    user agent
            A component of a distributed system that presents an
            interface and processes requests on behalf of a user;
            for example, a www browser or a mail user agent.

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    WWW
            The World-Wide Web is a hypertext-based, distributed
            information system created by researchers at CERN in
            Switzerland. 

3. HTML as an Application of SGML

   HTML is an application of ISO 8879:1986 -- Standard Generalized
   Markup Language (SGML). SGML is a system for defining structured
   document types and markup languages to represent instances of those
   document types[SGML]. The public text -- DTD and SGML declaration --
   of the HTML document type definition are provided in 9, "HTML Public
   Text".

   The term "HTML" refers to both the document type defined here and the
   markup language for representing instances of this document type.

3.1. SGML Documents

   An HTML document is an SGML document; that is, a sequence of
   characters organized physically into a set of entities, and logically
   as a hierarchy of elements.

   In the SGML specification, the first production of the SGML syntax
   grammar separates an SGML document into three parts: an SGML
   declaration, a prologue, and an instance. For the purposes of this
   specification, the prologue is a DTD. This DTD describes another
   grammar: the start symbol is given in the doctype declaration, the
   terminals are data characters and tags, and the productions are
   determined by the element declarations. The instance must conform to
   the DTD, that is, it must be in the language defined by this grammar.

   The SGML declaration determines the lexicon of the grammar. It
   specifies the document character set, which determines a character
   repertoire that contains all characters that occur in all text
   entities in the document, and the code positions associated with
   those characters.

   The SGML declaration also specifies the syntax-reference character
   set of the document, and a few other parameters that bind the
   abstract syntax of SGML to a concrete syntax. This concrete syntax
   determines how the sequence of characters of the document is mapped
   to a sequence of terminals in the grammar of the prologue.

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   For example, consider the following document:

    
    
    
Some text. *wow*

   An HTML user agent should use the SGML declaration that is given in
   9.5, "SGML Declaration for HTML". According to its document character
   set, `*' refers to an asterisk character, `*'.

   The instance above is regarded as the following sequence of
   terminals:

        1. start-tag: TITLE

        2. data characters: "Parsing Example"

        3. end-tag: TITLE

        4. start-tag: P

        5. data characters "Some text."

        6. start-tag: EM

        7. data characters: "*wow*"

        8. end-tag: EM

        9. end-tag: P

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   The start symbol of the DTD grammar is HTML, and the productions are
   given in the public text identified by `-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN'
   (9.1, "HTML DTD"). The terminals above parse as:

       HTML
        |
        \-HEAD
        |  |
        |  \-TITLE
        |      |
        |      \-
        |
        \-BODY
          |
          \-P
            |
            \-

            |
            \-"Some text. "
            |
            \-EM
            |  |
            |  \-
            |  |
            |  \-"*wow*"
            |  |
            |  \-
            |
            \-

   Some of the elements are delimited explicitly by tags, while the
   boundaries of others are inferred. The  element contains a
    element and a  element. The  contains 
    
    
    
    
    
    
 

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3.3. HTML Public Text Identifiers

   To identify information as an HTML document conforming to this
   specification, each document must start with one of the following
   document type declarations.

   

   This document type declaration refers to the HTML DTD in 9.1, "HTML
   DTD".

      NOTE - If the body of a `text/html' message entity does not begin
      with a document type declaration, an HTML user agent should infer
      the above document type declaration.

   

   This document type declaration also refers to the HTML DTD which
   appears in 9.1, "HTML DTD".

   

   This document type declaration refers to the level 1 HTML DTD in 9.3,
   "Level 1 HTML DTD". Form elements must not occur in level 1
   documents.

   
   

   These two document type declarations refer to the HTML DTD in 9.2,
   "Strict HTML DTD" and 9.4, "Strict Level 1 HTML DTD". They refer to
   the more structurally rigid definition of HTML.

   HTML user agents may support other document types. In particular,
   they may support other formal public identifiers, or other document
   types altogether. They may support an internal declaration subset
   with supplemental entity, element, and other markup declarations.

3.4. Example HTML Document

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
First Header
    
This is a paragraph in the example HTML file. Keep in mind

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    that the title does not appear in the document text, but that
    the header (defined by H1) does.
    

    
First item in an ordered list.
    
Second item in an ordered list.
      

      
 Note that lists can be nested;
      
 Whitespace may be used to assist in reading the
           HTML source.
      
    
Third item in an ordered list.
    
    
This is an additional paragraph. Technically, end tags are
    not required for paragraphs, although they are allowed. You can
    include character highlighting in a paragraph. This sentence
    of the paragraph is emphasized. Note that the </P>
    end tag has been omitted.
    

    
    Be sure to read these bold instructions.
    

4. HTML as an Internet Media Type

   An HTML user agent allows users to interact with resources which have
   HTML representations. At a minimum, it must allow users to examine
   and navigate the content of HTML level 1 documents. HTML user agents
   should be able to preserve all formatting distinctions represented in
   an HTML document, and be able to simultaneously present resources
   referred to by IMG elements (they may ignore some formatting
   distinctions or IMG resources at the request of the user). Level 2
   HTML user agents should support form entry and submission.

4.1. text/html media type

   This specification defines the Internet Media Type [IMEDIA] (formerly
   referred to as the Content Type [MIME]) called `text/html'. The
   following is to be registered with [IANA].

    Media Type name
            text

    Media subtype name
            html

    Required parameters
            none

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    Optional parameters
            level, charset

    Encoding considerations
            any encoding is allowed

    Security considerations
            see 10, "Security Considerations"

    The optional parameters are defined as follows:

    Level
            The level parameter specifies the feature set used in
            the document. The level is an integer number, implying
            that any features of same or lower level may be present
            in the document. Level 1 is all features defined in this
            specification except those that require the 

            element. Level 2 includes form processing. Level 2 is
            the default.

    Charset
            The charset parameter (as defined in section 7.1.1 of
            RFC 1521[MIME]) may be given to specify the character
            encoding scheme used to represent the HTML document as a
            sequence of octets. The default value is outside the
            scope of this specification; but for example, the
            default is `US-ASCII' in the context of MIME mail, and
            `ISO-8859-1' in the context of HTTP [HTTP].

4.2. HTML Document Representation

   A message entity with a content type of `text/html' represents an
   HTML document, consisting of a single text entity. The `charset'
   parameter (whether implicit or explicit) identifies a character
   encoding scheme. The text entity consists of the characters
   determined by this character encoding scheme and the octets of the
   body of the message entity.

4.2.1. Undeclared Markup Error Handling

   To facilitate experimentation and interoperability between
   implementations of various versions of HTML, the installed base of
   HTML user agents supports a superset of the HTML 2.0 language by
   reducing it to HTML 2.0: markup in the form of a start-tag or end-
   tag, whose generic identifier is not declared is mapped to nothing
   during tokenization. Undeclared attributes are treated similarly. The
   entire attribute specification of an unknown attribute (i.e., the
   unknown attribute and its value, if any) should be ignored. On the

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   other hand, references to undeclared entities should be treated as
   data characters.

   For example:

    
foo
...
      => 
,"foo",
,
,"..."
    xxx 
 yyy
      => "xxx ",
," yyy
    Let α & β be finite sets.
      => "Let α & β be finite sets."

   Support for notifying the user of such errors is encouraged.

   Information providers are warned that this convention is not binding:
   unspecified behavior may result, as such markup does not conform to
   this specification.

4.2.2. Conventional Representation of Newlines

   SGML specifies that a text entity is a sequence of records, each
   beginning with a record start character and ending with a record end
   character (code positions 10 and 13 respectively) (section 7.6.1,
   "Record Boundaries" in [SGML]).

   [MIME] specifies that a body of type `text/*' is a sequence of lines,
   each terminated by CRLF, that is, octets 13, 10.

   In practice, HTML documents are frequently represented and
   transmitted using an end of line convention that depends on the
   conventions of the source of the document; frequently, that
   representation consists of CR only, LF only, or a CR LF sequence.
   Hence the decoding of the octets will often result in a text entity
   with some missing record start and record end characters.

   Since there is no ambiguity, HTML user agents are encouraged to infer
   the missing record start and end characters.

   An HTML user agent should treat end of line in any of its variations
   as a word space in all contexts except preformatted text. Within
   preformatted text, an HTML user agent should treat any of the three
   common representations of end-of-line as starting a new line.

5. Document Structure

   An HTML document is a tree of elements, including a head and body,
   headings, paragraphs, lists, etc. Form elements are discussed in 8,
   "Forms".

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5.1. Document Element: HTML

   The HTML document element consists of a head and a body, much like a
   memo or a mail message. The head contains the title and optional
   elements. The body is a text flow consisting of paragraphs, lists,
   and other elements.

5.2. Head: HEAD

   The head of an HTML document is an unordered collection of
   information about the document. For example:

    
    
    
    
    ...

5.2.1. Title: TITLE

   Every HTML document must contain a 
   
   
   
 Choose any of these icons:

   

   and the user chooses the upper-leftmost pixel, the chosen
   hyperlink is the one with the URI
   `http://host/cgi-bin/imagemap?0,0'.

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8. Forms

   A form is a template for a form data set and an associated
   method and action URI. A form data set is a sequence of
   name/value pair fields. The names are specified on the NAME
   attributes of form input elements, and the values are given
   initial values by various forms of markup and edited by the
   user. The resulting form data set is used to access an
   information service as a function of the action and method.

   Forms elements can be mixed in with document structuring
   elements. For example, a 
 element may contain a 
   element, or a  element may contain lists which contain
    elements. This gives considerable flexibility in
   designing the layout of forms.

   Form processing is a level 2 feature.

8.1. Form Elements

8.1.1. Form: FORM

   The  element contains a sequence of input elements, along
   with document structuring elements. The attributes are:

    ACTION
            specifies the action URI for the form. The action URI of
            a form defaults to the base URI of the document (see 7,
            "Hyperlinks").

    METHOD
            selects a method of accessing the action URI. The set of
            applicable methods is a function of the scheme of the
            action URI of the form. See 8.2.2, "Query Forms:
            METHOD=GET" and 8.2.3, "Forms with Side-Effects:
            METHOD=POST".

    ENCTYPE
            specifies the media type used to encode the name/value
            pairs for transport, in case the protocol does not
            itself impose a format. See 8.2.1, "The form-urlencoded
            Media Type".

8.1.2. Input Field: INPUT

   The  element represents a field for user input. The TYPE
   attribute discriminates between several variations of fields.

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   The  element has a number of attributes. The set of applicable
   attributes depends on the value of the TYPE attribute.

8.1.2.1. Text Field: INPUT TYPE=TEXT

   The default value of the TYPE attribute is `TEXT', indicating a
   single line text entry field. (Use the  element for multi-
   line text fields.)

   Required attributes are:

    NAME
            name for the form field corresponding to this element.

    The optional attributes are:

    MAXLENGTH
            constrains the number of characters that can be entered
            into a text input field. If the value of MAXLENGTH is
            greater the the value of the SIZE attribute, the field
            should scroll appropriately. The default number of
            characters is unlimited.

    SIZE
            specifies the amount of display space allocated to this
            input field according to its type. The default depends
            on the user agent.

    VALUE
            The initial value of the field.

    For example:

<p>Street Address: <input name=street><br>
Postal City code: <input name=city size=16 maxlength=16><br>
Zip Code: <input name=zip size=10 maxlength=10 value="99999-9999"><br>

8.1.2.2. Password Field: INPUT TYPE=PASSWORD

   An <INPUT> element with `TYPE=PASSWORD' is a text field as above,
   except that the value is obscured as it is entered. (see also: 10,
   "Security Considerations").

   For example:

<p>Name: <input name=login> Password: <input type=password name=passwd>

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8.1.2.3. Check Box: INPUT TYPE=CHECKBOX

   An <INPUT> element with `TYPE=CHECKBOX' represents a boolean choice.
   A set of such elements with the same name represents an n-of-many
   choice field. Required attributes are:

    NAME
            symbolic name for the form field corresponding to this
            element or group of elements.

    VALUE
            The portion of the value of the field contributed by
            this element.

    Optional attributes are:

    CHECKED
            indicates that the initial state is on.

    For example:

  <p>What flavors do you like?
  <input type=checkbox name=flavor value=vanilla>Vanilla<br>
  <input type=checkbox name=flavor value=strawberry>Strawberry<br>
  <input type=checkbox name=flavor value=chocolate checked>Chocolate<br>

8.1.2.4. Radio Button: INPUT TYPE=RADIO

   An <INPUT> element with `TYPE=RADIO' represents a boolean choice. A
   set of such elements with the same name represents a 1-of-many choice
   field. The NAME and VALUE attributes are required as for check boxes.
   Optional attributes are:

    CHECKED
            indicates that the initial state is on.
   At all times, exactly one of the radio buttons in a set is checked.
   If none of the <INPUT> elements of a set of radio buttons specifies
   `CHECKED', then the user agent must check the first radio button of
   the set initially.

   For example:

    <p>Which is your favorite?
    <input type=radio name=flavor value=vanilla>Vanilla<br>
    <input type=radio name=flavor value=strawberry>Strawberry<br>
    <input type=radio name=flavor value=chocolate>Chocolate<br>

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8.1.2.5. Image Pixel: INPUT TYPE=IMAGE

   An <INPUT> element with `TYPE=IMAGE' specifies an image resource to
   display, and allows input of two form fields: the x and y coordinate
   of a pixel chosen from the image. The names of the fields are the
   name of the field with `.x' and `.y' appended.  `TYPE=IMAGE' implies
   `TYPE=SUBMIT' processing; that is, when a pixel is chosen, the form
   as a whole is submitted.

   The NAME attribute is required as for other input fields. The SRC
   attribute is required and the ALIGN is optional as for the <IMG>
   element (see 5.10, "Image: IMG").

   For example:

    <p>Choose a point on the map:
    <input type=image name=point src="map.gif">

8.1.2.6. Hidden Field: INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN

   An <INPUT> element with `TYPE=HIDDEN' represents a hidden field.The
   user does not interact with this field; instead, the VALUE attribute
   specifies the value of the field. The NAME and VALUE attributes are
   required.

   For example:

   <input type=hidden name=context value="l2k3j4l2k3j4l2k3j4lk23">

8.1.2.7. Submit Button: INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT

   An <INPUT> element with `TYPE=SUBMIT' represents an input option,
   typically a button, that instructs the user agent to submit the form.
   Optional attributes are:

    NAME
            indicates that this element contributes a form field
            whose value is given by the VALUE attribute. If the NAME
            attribute is not present, this element does not
            contribute a form field.

    VALUE
            indicates a label for the input (button).

    You may submit this request internally:
    <input type=submit name=recipient value=internal><br>
    or to the external world:
    <input type=submit name=recipient value=world>

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8.1.2.8. Reset Button: INPUT TYPE=RESET

   An <INPUT> element with `TYPE=RESET' represents an input option,
   typically a button, that instructs the user agent to reset the form's
   fields to their initial states. The VALUE attribute, if present,
   indicates a label for the input (button).

   When you are finished, you may submit this request:
   <input type=submit><br>
   You may clear the form and start over at any time: <input type=reset>

8.1.3. Selection: SELECT

   The <SELECT> element constrains the form field to an enumerated list
   of values. The values are given in <OPTION> elements.  Attributes
   are:

    MULTIPLE
            indicates that more than one option may be included in
            the value.

    NAME
            specifies the name of the form field.

    SIZE
            specifies the number of visible items. Select fields of
            size one are typically pop-down menus, whereas select
            fields with size greater than one are typically lists.

    For example:

    <SELECT NAME="flavor">
    <OPTION>Vanilla
    <OPTION>Strawberry
    <OPTION value="RumRasin">Rum and Raisin
    <OPTION selected>Peach and Orange
    </SELECT>

   The initial state has the first option selected, unless a SELECTED
   attribute is present on any of the <OPTION> elements.

8.1.3.1. Option: OPTION

   The Option element can only occur within a Select element. It
   represents one choice, and has the following attributes:

    SELECTED
            Indicates that this option is initially selected.

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    VALUE
            indicates the value to be returned if this option is
            chosen. The field value defaults to the content of the
            <OPTION> element.

   The content of the <OPTION> element is presented to the user to
   represent the option. It is used as a returned value if the VALUE
   attribute is not present.

8.1.4. Text Area: TEXTAREA

   The <TEXTAREA> element represents a multi-line text field.
   Attributes are:

    COLS
            the number of visible columns to display for the text
            area, in characters.

    NAME
            Specifies the name of the form field.

    ROWS
            The number of visible rows to display for the text area,
            in characters.

    For example:

    <TEXTAREA NAME="address" ROWS=6 COLS=64>
    HaL Computer Systems
    1315 Dell Avenue
    Campbell, California 95008
    

   The content of the  element is the field's initial value.

   Typically, the ROWS and COLS attributes determine the visible
   dimension of the field in characters. The field is typically rendered
   in a fixed-width font. HTML user agents should allow text to extend
   beyond these limits by scrolling as needed.

8.2. Form Submission

   An HTML user agent begins processing a form by presenting the
   document with the fields in their initial state. The user is allowed
   to modify the fields, constrained by the field type etc.  When the
   user indicates that the form should be submitted (using a submit
   button or image input), the form data set is processed according to
   its method, action URI and enctype.

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   When there is only one single-line text input field in a form, the
   user agent should accept Enter in that field as a request to submit
   the form.

8.2.1. The form-urlencoded Media Type

   The default encoding for all forms is `application/x-www-form-
   urlencoded'. A form data set is represented in this media type as
   follows:

        1. The form field names and values are escaped: space
        characters are replaced by `+', and then reserved characters
        are escaped as per [URL]; that is, non-alphanumeric
        characters are replaced by `%HH', a percent sign and two
        hexadecimal digits representing the ASCII code of the
        character. Line breaks, as in multi-line text field values,
        are represented as CR LF pairs, i.e. `%0D%0A'.

        2. The fields are listed in the order they appear in the
        document with the name separated from the value by `=' and
        the pairs separated from each other by `&'. Fields with null
        values may be omitted. In particular, unselected radio
        buttons and checkboxes should not appear in the encoded
        data, but hidden fields with VALUE attributes present
        should.

            NOTE - The URI from a query form submission can be
            used in a normal anchor style hyperlink.
            Unfortunately, the use of the `&' character to
            separate form fields interacts with its use in SGML
            attribute values as an entity reference delimiter.
            For example, the URI `http://host/?x=1&y=2' must be
            written `<a href="http://host/?x=1&y=2"' or `<a
            href="http://host/?x=1&y=2">'.

            HTTP server implementors, and in particular, CGI
            implementors are encouraged to support the use of
            `;' in place of `&' to save users the trouble of
            escaping `&' characters this way.

8.2.2. Query Forms: METHOD=GET

   If the processing of a form is idempotent (i.e. it has no lasting
   observable effect on the state of the world), then the form method
   should be `GET'. Many database searches have no visible side-effects
   and make ideal applications of query forms.

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   To process a form whose action URL is an HTTP URL and whose method is
   `GET', the user agent starts with the action URI and appends a `?'
   and the form data set, in `application/x-www-form-urlencoded' format
   as above. The user agent then traverses the link to this URI just as
   if it were an anchor (see 7.2, "Activation of Hyperlinks").

      NOTE - The URL encoding may result in very long URIs, which cause
      some historical HTTP server implementations to exhibit defective
      behavior. As a result, some HTML forms are written using
      `METHOD=POST' even though the form submission has no side-effects.

8.2.3. Forms with Side-Effects: METHOD=POST

   If the service associated with the processing of a form has side
   effects (for example, modification of a database or subscription to a
   service), the method should be `POST'.

   To process a form whose action URL is an HTTP URL and whose method is
   `POST', the user agent conducts an HTTP POST transaction using the
   action URI, and a message body of type `application/x-www-form-
   urlencoded' format as above. The user agent should display the
   response from the HTTP POST interaction just as it would display the
   response from an HTTP GET above.

8.2.4. Example Form Submission: Questionnaire Form

   Consider the following document:

    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
    <title>Sample of HTML Form Submission</title>
    <H1>Sample Questionnaire</H1>
    <P>Please fill out this questionnaire:
    <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="http://www.w3.org/sample">
    <P>Your name: <INPUT NAME="name" size="48">
    <P>Male <INPUT NAME="gender" TYPE=RADIO VALUE="male">
    <P>Female <INPUT NAME="gender" TYPE=RADIO VALUE="female">
    <P>Number in family: <INPUT NAME="family" TYPE=text>
    <P>Cities in which you maintain a residence:
    <UL>
    <LI>Kent <INPUT NAME="city" TYPE=checkbox VALUE="kent">
    <LI>Miami <INPUT NAME="city" TYPE=checkbox VALUE="miami">
    <LI>Other <TEXTAREA NAME="other" cols=48 rows=4>
    
    Nickname: 
    
Thank you for responding to this questionnaire.
    
 
    

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    The initial state of the form data set is:

    name
            ""

    gender
            "male"

    family
            ""

    other
            ""

    nickname
            ""

    Note that the radio input has an initial value, while the
    checkbox has none.

    The user might edit the fields and request that the form be
    submitted. At that point, suppose the values are:

    name
            "John Doe"

    gender
            "male"

    family
            "5"

    city
            "kent"

    city
            "miami"

    other
            "abc\ndefk"

    nickname
            "J&D"

   The user agent then conducts an HTTP POST transaction using the URI
   `http://www.w3.org/sample'. The message body would be (ignore the
   line break):

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   name=John+Doe&gender=male&family=5&city=kent&city=miami&
   other=abc%0D%0Adef&nickname=J%26D

9. HTML Public Text

9.1. HTML DTD

   This is the Document Type Definition for the HyperText Markup
   Language, level 2.




            
            ...
            
        --
        >







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]]>






















%ISOlat1;



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]]>














Heading
                is preferred to
           
Heading
        -->
]]>




"
        >












#AttVal(Alt)"
        >












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]]>



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]]>



























]]>


























Directory"
        >

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Menu"
        >













Heading
           
Text ...
                is preferred to
           
Heading
           Text ...
        -->
]]>




















Form:"
        %SDASUFF; "Form End."
        >




















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Select #AttVal(Multiple)"
        >





















]]>




]]>














"    >










[Document is indexed/searchable.]">












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]]>









9.2. Strict HTML DTD

   This document type declaration refers to the HTML DTD with the
   `HTML.Recommended' entity defined as `INCLUDE' rather than IGNORE;
   that is, it refers to the more structurally rigid definition of HTML.



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            ...
            
        --
        >





%html;

9.3. Level 1 HTML DTD

   This document type declaration refers to the HTML DTD with the
   `HTML.Forms' entity defined as `IGNORE' rather than `INCLUDE'.
   Documents which contain 
 elements do not conform to this DTD,
   and must use the level 2 DTD.




            
            ...
            

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        --
        >





%html;

9.4. Strict Level 1 HTML DTD

   This document type declaration refers to the level 1 HTML DTD with
   the `HTML.Recommended' entity defined as `INCLUDE' rather than
   IGNORE; that is, it refers to the more structurally rigid definition
   of HTML.




            
            ...
            
        --
        >






%html-1;

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9.5. SGML Declaration for HTML

   This is the SGML Declaration for HyperText Markup Language.




9.6. Sample SGML Open Entity Catalog for HTML

   The SGML standard describes an "entity manager" as the portion or
   component of an SGML system that maps SGML entities into the actual
   storage model (e.g., the file system). The standard itself does not

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   define a particular mapping methodology or notation.

   To assist the interoperability among various SGML tools and systems,
   the SGML Open consortium has passed a technical resolution that
   defines a format for an application-independent entity catalog that
   maps external identifiers and/or entity names to file names.

   Each entry in the catalog associates a storage object identifier
   (such as a file name) with information about the external entity that
   appears in the SGML document. In addition to entries that associate
   public identifiers, a catalog entry can associate an entity name with
   a storage object identifier. For example, the following are possible
   catalog entries:

        -- catalog: SGML Open style entity catalog for HTML --
        -- $Id: catalog,v 1.3 1995/09/21 23:30:23 connolly Exp $ --

        -- Ways to refer to Level 2: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"                 html.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"             html.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Level 2//EN"         html.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 2//EN"     html.dtd

        -- Ways to refer to Level 1: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Level 1//EN"         html-1.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 1//EN"     html-1.dtd

        -- Ways to refer to
                 Strict Level 2: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict//EN"                  html-s.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict//EN"              html-s.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 2//EN"          html-s.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 2//EN"      html-s.dtd

        -- Ways to refer to
                 Strict Level 1: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 1//EN"          html-1s.dtd
PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 1//EN"      html-1s.dtd

        -- ISO latin 1 entity set for HTML --
PUBLIC  "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Added Latin 1//EN//HTML" ISOlat1\
sgml

9.7. Character Entity Sets

   The HTML DTD defines the following entities. They represent
   particular graphic characters which have special meanings in places
   in the markup, or may not be part of the character set available to

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   the writer.

9.7.1. Numeric and Special Graphic Entity Set

   The following table lists each of the characters included from the
   Numeric and Special Graphic entity set, along with its name, syntax
   for use, and description. This list is derived from `ISO Standard
   8879:1986//ENTITIES Numeric and Special Graphic//EN'.  However, HTML
   does not include for the entire entity set -- only the entities
   listed below are included.

    GLYPH   NAME    SYNTAX  DESCRIPTION
    <       lt      <    Less than sign
    >       gt      >    Greater than signn
    &       amp     &   Ampersand
    "       quot    "  Double quote sign

9.7.2. ISO Latin 1 Character Entity Set

   The following public text lists each of the characters specified in
   the Added Latin 1 entity set, along with its name, syntax for use,
   and description. This list is derived from ISO Standard
   8879:1986//ENTITIES Added Latin 1//EN. HTML includes the entire
   entity set.
















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10. Security Considerations

   Anchors, embedded images, and all other elements which contain URIs
   as parameters may cause the URI to be dereferenced in response to
   user input. In this case, the security considerations of [URL] apply.

   The widely deployed methods for submitting forms requests -- HTTP and
   SMTP -- provide little assurance of confidentiality.  Information
   providers who request sensitive information via forms -- especially
   by way of the `PASSWORD' type input field (see 8.1.2, "Input Field:
   INPUT") -- should be aware and make their users aware of the lack of
   confidentiality.

11. References

    [URI]
            Berners-Lee, T., "Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW:
            A Unifying Syntax for the Expression of Names and
            Addresses of Objects on the Network as used in the
            World- Wide Web",  RFC 1630, CERN, June 1994.
            

    [URL]
            Berners-Lee, T., Masinter, L., and M. McCahill, "Uniform
            Resource Locators (URL)", RFC 1738, CERN, Xerox PARC,
            University of Minnesota, December 1994.
            

    [HTTP]
            Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and H. Frystyk Nielsen,
            "Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP/1.0", Work in
            Progress, MIT, UC Irvine, CERN, March 1995.

    [MIME]
            Borenstein, N., and N. Freed. "MIME (Multipurpose
            Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for
            Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message
            Bodies", RFC 1521, Bellcore, Innosoft, September 1993.
            

    [RELURL]
            Fielding, R., "Relative Uniform Resource Locators", RFC
            1808, June 1995
            

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    [GOLD90]
            Goldfarb, C., "The SGML Handbook", Y. Rubinsky, Ed.,
            Oxford University Press, 1990.

    [DEXTER]
            Frank Halasz and Mayer Schwartz, "The Dexter Hypertext
            Reference Model", Communications of the ACM, pp.
            30-39, vol. 37 no. 2, Feb 1994.

    [IMEDIA]
            Postel, J., "Media Type Registration Procedure",
            RFC 1590, USC/Information Sciences Institute, March 1994.
            

    [IANA]
            Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2,
            RFC 1700, USC/Information Sciecnes Institute, October
            1994.  

    [SQ91]
            SoftQuad. "The SGML Primer", 3rd ed., SoftQuad Inc.,
            1991. 

    [ISO-646]
            ISO/IEC 646:1991 Information technology -- ISO 7-bit
            coded character set for information interchange
            

    [ISO-10646]
            ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993 Information technology -- Universal
            Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Part 1:
            Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane
            

    [ISO-8859-1]
            ISO 8859. International Standard -- Information
            Processing -- 8-bit Single-Byte Coded Graphic Character
            Sets -- Part 1: Latin Alphabet No. 1, ISO 8859-1:1987.
            

    [SGML]
            ISO 8879. Information Processing -- Text and Office
            Systems - Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML),
            1986. 

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12. Acknowledgments

   The HTML document type was designed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN as
   part of the 1990 World Wide Web project. In 1992, Dan Connolly wrote
   the HTML Document Type Definition (DTD) and a brief HTML
   specification.

   Since 1993, a wide variety of Internet participants have contributed
   to the evolution of HTML, which has included the addition of in-line
   images introduced by the NCSA Mosaic software for WWW. Dave Raggett
   played an important role in deriving the forms material from the
   HTML+ specification.

   Dan Connolly and Karen Olson Muldrow rewrote the HTML Specification
   in 1994. The document was then edited by the HTML working group as a
   whole, with updates being made by Eric Schieler, Mike Knezovich, and
   Eric W. Sink at Spyglass, Inc.  Finally, Roy Fielding restructured
   the entire draft into its current form.

   Special thanks to the many active participants in the HTML working
   group, too numerous to list individually, without whom there would be
   no standards process and no standard. That this document approaches
   its objective of carefully converging a description of current
   practice and formalization of HTML's relationship to SGML is a
   tribute to their effort.

12.1. Authors' Addresses

   Tim Berners-Lee
   Director, W3 Consortium
   MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
   545 Technology Square
   Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.

   Phone: +1 (617) 253 9670
   Fax: +1 (617) 258 8682
   EMail: timbl@w3.org

   Daniel W. Connolly
   Research Technical Staff, W3 Consortium
   MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
   545 Technology Square
   Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.

   Phone: +1 (617) 258 8682
   EMail: connolly@w3.org
   URI: http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/Connolly/

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13. The HTML Coded Character Set

   This list details the code positions and characters of the HTML
   document character set, specified in 9.5, "SGML Declaration for
   HTML". This coded character set is based on [ISO-8859-1].

    REFERENCE       DESCRIPTION
    --------------  -----------
    � -    Unused
    	           Horizontal tab
    
           Line feed
     -    Unused
    
           Carriage Return
     -    Unused
                Space
    !           Exclamation mark
    "           Quotation mark
    #           Number sign
    $           Dollar sign
    %           Percent sign
    &           Ampersand
    '           Apostrophe
    (           Left parenthesis
    )           Right parenthesis
    *           Asterisk
    +           Plus sign
    ,           Comma
    -           Hyphen
    .           Period (fullstop)
    /           Solidus (slash)
    0 - 9   Digits 0-9
    :           Colon
    ;           Semi-colon
    <           Less than
    =           Equals sign
    >           Greater than
    ?           Question mark
    @           Commercial at
    A - Z   Letters A-Z
    [           Left square bracket
    \           Reverse solidus (backslash)
    ]           Right square bracket
    ^           Caret
    _           Horizontal bar (underscore)
    `           Acute accent
    a - z  Letters a-z
    {          Left curly brace
    |          Vertical bar

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    }          Right curly brace
    ~          Tilde
     - Ÿ Unused
               Non-breaking Space
    ¡          Inverted exclamation
    ¢          Cent sign
    £          Pound sterling
    ¤          General currency sign
    ¥          Yen sign
    ¦          Broken vertical bar
    §          Section sign
    ¨          Umlaut (dieresis)
    ©          Copyright
    ª          Feminine ordinal
    «          Left angle quote, guillemotleft
    ¬          Not sign
    ­          Soft hyphen
    ®          Registered trademark
    ¯          Macron accent
    °          Degree sign
    ±          Plus or minus
    ²          Superscript two
    ³          Superscript three
    ´          Acute accent
    µ          Micro sign
    ¶          Paragraph sign
    ·          Middle dot
    ¸          Cedilla
    ¹          Superscript one
    º          Masculine ordinal
    »          Right angle quote, guillemotright
    ¼          Fraction one-fourth
    ½          Fraction one-half
    ¾          Fraction three-fourths
    ¿          Inverted question mark
    À          Capital A, grave accent
    Á          Capital A, acute accent
    Â          Capital A, circumflex accent
    Ã          Capital A, tilde
    Ä          Capital A, dieresis or umlaut mark
    Å          Capital A, ring
    Æ          Capital AE dipthong (ligature)
    Ç          Capital C, cedilla
    È          Capital E, grave accent
    É          Capital E, acute accent
    Ê          Capital E, circumflex accent
    Ë          Capital E, dieresis or umlaut mark
    Ì          Capital I, grave accent

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    Í          Capital I, acute accent
    Î          Capital I, circumflex accent
    Ï          Capital I, dieresis or umlaut mark
    Ð          Capital Eth, Icelandic
    Ñ          Capital N, tilde
    Ò          Capital O, grave accent
    Ó          Capital O, acute accent
    Ô          Capital O, circumflex accent
    Õ          Capital O, tilde
    Ö          Capital O, dieresis or umlaut mark
    ×          Multiply sign
    Ø          Capital O, slash
    Ù          Capital U, grave accent
    Ú          Capital U, acute accent
    Û          Capital U, circumflex accent
    Ü          Capital U, dieresis or umlaut mark
    Ý          Capital Y, acute accent
    Þ          Capital THORN, Icelandic
    ß          Small sharp s, German (sz ligature)
    à          Small a, grave accent
    á          Small a, acute accent
    â          Small a, circumflex accent
    ã          Small a, tilde
    ä          Small a, dieresis or umlaut mark
    å          Small a, ring
    æ          Small ae dipthong (ligature)
    ç          Small c, cedilla
    è          Small e, grave accent
    é          Small e, acute accent
    ê          Small e, circumflex accent
    ë          Small e, dieresis or umlaut mark
    ì          Small i, grave accent
    í          Small i, acute accent
    î          Small i, circumflex accent
    ï          Small i, dieresis or umlaut mark
    ð          Small eth, Icelandic
    ñ          Small n, tilde
    ò          Small o, grave accent
    ó          Small o, acute accent
    ô          Small o, circumflex accent
    õ          Small o, tilde
    ö          Small o, dieresis or umlaut mark
    ÷          Division sign
    ø          Small o, slash
    ù          Small u, grave accent
    ú          Small u, acute accent
    û          Small u, circumflex accent
    ü          Small u, dieresis or umlaut mark

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    ý          Small y, acute accent
    þ          Small thorn, Icelandic
    ÿ          Small y, dieresis or umlaut mark

14. Proposed Entities

   The HTML DTD references the "Added Latin 1" entity set, which only
   supplies named entities for a subset of the non-ASCII characters in
   [ISO-8859-1], namely the accented characters. The following entities
   should be supported so that all ISO 8859-1 characters may only be
   referenced symbolically. The names for these entities are taken from
   the appendixes of [SGML].

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

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