<head Profile="URL">?

G

gazzanewpy

What is the PROFILE attribute of the <head> tag for? I understand that
it is unsupported within most browsers but is within the new HTML
definitions. Yet I cannot find out it's purpose. What is at the other
end of the URL?
 
J

Jim Moe

gazzanewpy said:
What is the PROFILE attribute of the <head> tag for? I understand that
it is unsupported within most browsers but is within the new HTML
definitions. Yet I cannot find out it's purpose. What is at the other
end of the URL?
It points to a document that has info that is normally contained in the
various <meta> elements. At this time "profile" does nothing, it is just a
placeholder.
 
T

Toby Inkster

Jim said:
It points to a document that has info that is normally contained in the
various <meta> elements.

No, it doesn't.

The profile is a document, which may also act as a namespace, which
describes what each META element *means*.

For example, if I use:

<meta name="T-Factor" content="12">

in a document, no browser, and very few users, will know what that means.
The document pointed to by the profile will define what "T-Factor" means.

One commonly used profile is Dublin Core. Another is RFC 2731, which is a
meta-profile, allowing you to mix and match other profiles.
 
J

Jukka K. Korpela

Toby Inkster said:
The profile is a document, which may also act as a namespace, which
describes what each META element *means*.

Something like that. However, I have not seen any evidence of any
software actually trying to make some use of the profile attribute in
<head>. For all practical purposes, it is useless at present. But if
you wish to play some meta game, e.g. entering Dublin Core metadata,
then it would be logical to use the attribute. Such a game is, however,
pointless solitaire - except perhaps in the _authoring_ environment,
where metadata is actually used for something.
 

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