Closing Options

Question about Closing the Option Tag

[yintercept]

The closing option tag used to be optional. In XHTML, we are supposed to close everything.

I am using the option tag a lot on a site. I noticed that I could reduce about 3% of a project's bandwidth by nixing the close option tag. Is it considered okay to close the option tag inline.

This is what I would like to do

<option value="1" />One
<option value="2" />Two
<option value="3" />Three

This is what I currently do:

<option value="1" />One</option>
<option value="2" />Two</option>
<option value="3" />Three</option>

I tested the idea on different browsers and it displayed okay.

[encyclo]

<option value="1" />One</option>

The trailing slash in the above example is incorrect because it would close the

option

element before the contents.

You can't rely on using XML syntax unless you are using XHTML served as XML rather than HTML, and in that case your page wouldn't work in Internet Explorer.

You have two options: either to use the syntax

<option value="1">One</option>

and continue using an XHTML doctype, or you can switch to HTML 4.01 Transitional (as XHTML as HTML offers no advantages) and drop the closing tag.

[Fotiman]

You might also want to read the discussion Why most of us should NOT use XHTML [webmasterworld.com].

[abhishekkaushik]

Sometimes an incorrect tag can display well this is the property of HTML, wrong is wrong I don't know is it good to do this a better idea could be you validate your page with W3C if they says it's OK then no problem.