[Docutils-users] "bad" HTML output?

[David A. <da...@bo...>]

I just ran HTMLTidy over the output of

   python html.py test.txt test.html

in the tools directory. It had lots of complaints, many of which look
serious, though it only flagged them as warnings. In particular, I
notice lots of characters which appear to be invalid (possibly
nuls). I'm not an HTML expert, which is why I use Tidy. Are these
worth doing something about?

c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:16:1: Warning: <meta> element not empty or not closed
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:17:1: Warning: <meta> element not empty or not closed
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:23:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:85:24: Warning: <a> Anchor "table-of-contents" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:130:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "structural-elements" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:132:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "section-title" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:136:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "transitions" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:143:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "body-elements" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:145:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "paragraphs" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:148:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "inline-markup" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:158:66: Warning: <span> Anchor "id20" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:172:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "bullet-lists" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:195:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "enumerated-lists" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:228:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "definition-lists" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:241:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "field-lists" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:242:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:259:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "option-lists" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:261:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:305:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "literal-blocks" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:316:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "block-quotes" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:324:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "doctest-blocks" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:333:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "tables" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:335:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:378:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:414:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "footnotes" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:415:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:418:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "id6" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:424:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:427:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "label" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:434:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:437:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "id9" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:441:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:444:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "id10" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:445:113: Warning: replacing invalid character code 128
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:448:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:451:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "id12" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:451:72: Warning: replacing invalid character code 128
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:454:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:457:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "id13" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:458:51: Warning: <span> Anchor "id62" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:463:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "citations" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:464:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:468:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "cit2002" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:472:154: Warning: <span> Anchor "id64" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:476:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "targets" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:486:41: Warning: <span> Anchor "id66" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:489:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "duplicate-target-names" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:495:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "id18" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:498:35: Warning: <span> Anchor "id68" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:502:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "directives" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:516:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "document-parts" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:522:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "images" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:530:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:552:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "admonitions" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:589:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "target-footnotes" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:590:1: Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:593:23: Warning: <a> Anchor "id21" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:598:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "line-blocks" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:617:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "replacement-text" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:622:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "substitution-definitions" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:627:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "comments" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:638:5: Warning: <a> Anchor "error-handling" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:647:50: Warning: <a> Anchor "id19" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:650:50: Warning: <a> Anchor "id61" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:653:50: Warning: <a> Anchor "id63" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:656:50: Warning: <a> Anchor "id65" already defined
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html:659:50: Warning: <a> Anchor "id67" already defined

c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html: Doctype given is "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
c:/src/docutils/tools/test.html: Document content looks like XHTML 1.0 Strict
67 warnings, 0 errors were found!

Character codes 128 to 159 (U+0080 to U+009F) are not allowed in HTML;
even if they were, they would likely be unprintable control characters.
Tidy assumed you wanted to refer to a character with the same byte value in the 
Windows-1252 encoding and replaced that reference with the Unicode equivalent.

The table summary attribute should be used to describe
the table structure. It is very helpful for people using
non-visual browsers. The scope and headers attributes for
table cells are useful for specifying which headers apply
to each table cell, enabling non-visual browsers to provide
a meaningful context for each cell.

For further advice on how to make your pages accessible
see "http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL". You may also want to try
"http://www.cast.org/bobby/" which is a free Web-based
service for checking URLs for accessibility.

To learn more about HTML Tidy see http://tidy.sourceforge.net

-- 
                       David Abrahams
   da...@bo... * http://www.boost-consulting.com
Boost support, enhancements, training, and commercial distribution