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General Discussion

Posted by Bjork Ostrom
Bjork Ostrom
3,176 Points

Is it an img TAG or an img ELEMENT?

I'm stumped.

I'm referring to this:

<img src="" alt="" width="" height="" border="0" />

Would you call this an img TAG or an img ELEMENT?

3 Answers

Gary Mann
Gary Mann
8,639 Points
Gary Mann
Gary Mann
8,639 Points

"element" refers to the whole thing. "Tag" refers to what's inside your angle brackets <>. So in this case, where there's no content to the element besides the tag, unfortunately the terms are interchangeable.

Here's a better explanation. Here is an element:

<p class="whatever">Here is a paragraph.</p>

Here is an opening tag:

<p>

Here is an opening tag with an attribute:

<p class="whatever">

EDIT: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200508/html_tags_vs_elements_vs_attributes/

Bjork Ostrom
Bjork Ostrom
3,176 Points
Bjork Ostrom
Bjork Ostrom
3,176 Points

Awesome. Thanks so much for your help Gary. So, to recap, if the tag is self closing then it is also an element?

Gary Mann
Gary Mann
8,639 Points
Gary Mann
Gary Mann
8,639 Points

Correct. And you could refer to an element with no content as an "empty element".

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

The technical term for that is a "void element"

source: HTML5 spec