Dreamweaver, PHP and XHTML compliance

Hi

I'm essentially a back-end programmer so I don't know very much about
Dreamweaver. However, I work with web-designers who are keen for me to
write my pages using Dreamweaver templates.

One problem that has emerged straight away is that of XHTML compliance. I
understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that in order to achieve
this, every document must start with a line like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

However, this won't work in PHP, because as soon as it sees the '<?' it
assumes that what follows is php code (and crashes).

It's simple enough to add the line:

<?php echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"iso-8859-1\"?>\n"; ?>

at the top of your PHP pages, but then it won't work in plain HTML, so it
can't go in the template. What we need is version 1 of the line in HTML
docs and version 2 in PHP docs.

Does anyone know the answer to this problem?

.oO(Captain Nemo)

>I'm essentially a back-end programmer so I don't know very much about
>Dreamweaver. However, I work with web-designers who are keen for me to
>write my pages using Dreamweaver templates.
>
>One problem that has emerged straight away is that of XHTML compliance. I
>understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that in order to achieve
>this, every document must start with a line like:
>
><?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

Nope. While the XML prolog is recommended, it's not always necessary.
It's used to specify the used encoding, but this can/should also be done
in the response header sent by the server (with a charset parameter in
the content-type header). Additionally using such a prolog will kick
Internet Explorer into quirks mode.

>However, this won't work in PHP, because as soon as it sees the '<?' it
>assumes that what follows is php code (and crashes).

That's because short_open_tags are enabled on the server.

>It's simple enough to add the line:
>
><?php echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"iso-8859-1\"?>\n"; ?>

Ugly.

I would rather turn short_open_tags off (along with register_globals and
magic_quotes_gpc).

>at the top of your PHP pages, but then it won't work in plain HTML, so it
>can't go in the template. What we need is version 1 of the line in HTML
>docs and version 2 in PHP docs.
>
>Does anyone know the answer to this problem?

First you should ask the designers why they insist on using XHTML.
HTML 4.01 Strict is more than enough in most cases unless you know
exactly what you're doing. Currently there's little to no reason to use
XHTML. Only the most recent browsers like Opera and Mozilla really
support it, for others like IE you have to deliver it as text/html,
which makes no sense at all and may cause new problems.

Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful
http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

Micha

Captain Nemo wrote:
> However, this won't work in PHP, because as soon as it sees the '<?' it
> assumes that what follows is php code (and crashes).
>
> It's simple enough to add the line:
>
> <?php echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"iso-8859-1\"?>\n"; ?>
>
> at the top of your PHP pages, but then it won't work in plain HTML, so it
> can't go in the template. What we need is version 1 of the line in HTML
> docs and version 2 in PHP docs.
>
> Does anyone know the answer to this problem?

You could try "short_open_tag = off"
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.sec...short-open-tag

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