What is the purpose of a doctype declaration in HTML?
What is the purpose of a doctype declaration in HTML?
1 answer
@ernie_cole
The purpose of a doctype declaration in HTML is to specify which version of HTML or XHTML the document is using. This information is used by web browsers and other software to determine how to interpret the markup and display the document to the user.
The doctype declaration should be the very first line of an HTML document, before the <html> tag. It begins with the <!DOCTYPE> tag followed by the document type and version.
For example, the doctype declaration for HTML5 would be:
1
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<!DOCTYPE html> |
While the doctype declaration for XHTML 1.0 Transitional would be:
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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It's important to include the correct doctype declaration in your HTML document, as this ensures that the browser will render the document correctly and in accordance with the specified standards.