Too many <spans> inside a link?

[MacLustre]

HiThe xhtml validator is pointing to a problem within this line of code:<a href="gala2009_jones_smithssbakery.html#merchant"><span class="merchantcolor">Barley's Bakery</span><span class="fontblack marginat">:</span><a href="amdst2009_ajersch_barleysbakery.html#merchant"><span class="menublue font85">Mike Jones</span></a>The Validator's message (in part) is: "…unnescully_bscafe.html_m"><a href="amdst2009_dunnescully_bscafe.html#merchant">" (It's pointing to the closing bracket)"The mentioned element is not allowed to appear in the context in which you've placed it; the other mentioned elements are the only ones that are both allowed there and can contain the element mentioned. This might mean that you need a containing element, or possibly that you've forgotten to close a previous element.One possible cause for this message is that you have attempted to put a block-level element (such as "<p>" or "<table>") inside an inline element (such as "<a>", "<span>", or "<font>")."I'm guessing that I could solve the problem by cut-pasting the <a> link around each <span> set. I want each to have its own colour and <span> seemed the safest way to do that.I'm poised and ready to manually cut-paste all the code on this menu so that each <span></span> group is alone inside a link. There'd be hardly a blip with the mouseover.But I'm asking for confirmation, to be sure that the three <span>s are what's causing the trouble, and not something else.Thanks

[jeffman]

Am I correct that this link: <a href="amdst2009_ajersch_barleysbakery.html#merchant">comes inside this one: <a href="gala2009_jones_smithssbakery.html#merchant"> ?That would be a problemAnd where the heck is this link: <a href="amdst2009_dunnescully_bscafe.html#merchant"> ?You should post more code, so we can see this stuff in greater context. A link would be better still.

[MacLustre]

HiHere's a follow-up from the last message.I failed to take into consideration some code just ahead of this line: <a name="link"> I'd forgotten to write it: <a name="link" /> Once I fixed that typo, the error list collapsed to a short list of a few other dumb things. The Validator does a VERY good job, and this time I was having trouble meeting it half-way.I'm going to leave those <span>s inside the link, but I'm still interested in hearing from someone who's found an elegant flow to replace the clunker I've written.Cheers

[thescientist]

why don't you make special classes for your <a> tags that you can use instead of using an <a> tag and a span? Just make a merchant <a> and then a merchant name <a> with respective class applied to those <a> tags and ditch those spans?