Kynikos Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 (edited) According to http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/document-metadata.html#the-base-element shouldn't the example in http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_base.asp have a base tag that points to the current page (not just the directory)? That would solve some problems with link fragments and query strings as outlined in e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1889076/is-it-recommended-to-use-the-base-html-tag EDIT: This is a possible way I'd modify the example: <head><base href="http://www.w3schools.com/page.html'>http://www.w3schools.com/page.html" target="_blank"></head><body><img src="images/stickman.gif" width="24" height="39" alt="Stickman"><a href="http://www.w3schools.com">W3Schools</a></body> Edited April 8, 2015 by Kynikos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 It does look like the base tag should include the full URL to the current file, not to the current directory. That stack overflow discussion shows problems that can happen if only the directory is used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kynikos Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 I've already modified https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/base and the edit hasn't been reverted, so I guess it's ok. What can we do to have the w3schools.com example fixed too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingolme Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Your idea of setting the <base> tag to the exact same URL as the current page is redundant, it's the same as not using the <base> element at all. People use the <base> element when they want relative links to point to somewhere different. Usually, they have it pointing to a different directory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kynikos Posted April 12, 2015 Author Share Posted April 12, 2015 (edited) You make a point about the redundancy in that particular use case, but: 1) w3.org's specifications for HTML 5 http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/document-metadata#the-base-element and HTML 4.01 http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#h-12.4 use full URLs in the examples, so currently I see an inconsistency. https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#the-base-element uses full URLs too. 2) Suggesting to use a full URL (not necessarily to the current page) prevents the bugs reported in the stackoverflow discussion I linked in the OP; suggesting to use a directory URL has no advantage OTOH. 3) Having a base tag pointing to the current URL can be useful if a single document is saved locally, since all its relative links will still correctly point to the original domain. Also, always using a base tag could be a way to ensure crawling bots use the right URL for relative links. Edited April 12, 2015 by Kynikos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now