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HTML HTML Basics Getting Started with HTML Lists and Links Challenge

Ryan Canty
PLUS
Ryan Canty
Courses Plus Student 5,665 Points

Turn each list item into a link. The first item should link to cakes.html, the second to pies.html and the third to cand

What is wrong with this code?! I can't for the life of me figure it out....

index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Lists and Links</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  <ul>
    <a href="cakes.html"><li>Cakes</li></a>
    <a href="pies.html"><li>Pies</li></a>
    <a href="candy.html"><li>Candy</li></a>
    </ul>
  </body>
</html>

4 Answers

You just need to switch your tags around, with the <li> on the outside and <a> on the inside.

<li><a href="cakes.html">Cakes</a></li>
<li><a href="pies.html">Pies</a></li>
<li> <a href="candy.html">Candy</a></li>
Ryan Canty
Ryan Canty
Courses Plus Student 5,665 Points

I appreciate the response, thanks! But is there any practical reason for that apart from just passing the lesson? they both do the same thing

You are actually hyper linking (<a> tag) on the text of each list item. The list item tag (<li>) is a formatting tag that tells the browser that what is to follow is just a member of the unordered list (<ul>). The anchor tag is actually linking the text which is why it should surround only the text.

I hope that explanation helps.

From what I understand, it's because <li> is the child element of <ul>, so it has to come before <a>. I would also like someone else to elaborate on this...

This is correct. It would not be valid html if the <li> tags were inside the <a> tags.

a tags can not be direct children of ul tags

Here's a link to the ul element section of the html5 specification: https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/grouping-content.html#the-ul-element

The specification is not an easy thing to read but the important thing here is what is listed for "Content Model:" This is the part that tells you what is allowed to be directly inside of the element in question.

Here it states:

Zero or more li and script-supporting elements.

So nothing else besides that can be directly inside a ul.

<ul> <li><a href="cakes.html">Cakes</a></li> <li><a href="pies.html">Pies</a></li> <li><a href="candy.html">Candy</a></li> </ul>