| Syntax | <DEL>...</DEL> |
|---|---|
| Attribute Specifications |
|
| Contents | Inline elements, block-level elements |
| Contained in | Inline elements, block-level elements |
The DEL element contains content that has been deleted. This element is useful in marking changes from one version of a document to the next. Through style sheets, authors can suggest an appropriate rendering, such as not displaying the deleted content or rendering the text with a strike-through style.
DEL may be used as either a block-level element or an inline element. If used as an inline element (e.g., within a P), then DEL may not contain any block-level elements.
The optional CITE attribute of DEL gives a URI with information on why the content was deleted. A brief explanation for the deletion can be given with the TITLE attribute, which may be rendered as a "tooltip" by some browsers.
The optional DATETIME attribute specifies the date and time of the deletion. The value is case-sensitive and of the form YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD. See the values section for a full explanation of this format.
An example follows:
<DEL CITE="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/appendix/changes.html#h-A.1.3" DATETIME="1997-12-19T00:00:00-05:00" TITLE="XMP is obsolete"><P>The XMP element contains preformatted text in which markup other than an end tag is treated as literal text.</P></DEL>
Since DEL is poorly supported among browsers, authors may wish to use a font style element such as STRIKE (deprecated in HTML 4.0) to attempt to convey the meaning of DEL to non-supporting visual browsers. The previous example could also be marked up as follows:
<DEL CITE="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/appendix/changes.html#h-A.1.3" DATETIME="1997-12-19T00:00:00-05:00" TITLE="XMP is obsolete"><P><STRIKE>The XMP element is used for preformatted text in which markup other than an end tag is treated as literal text.</STRIKE></P></DEL>
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Copyright © 1998 by Liam Quinn. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).