Revert back to `<!doctype html>` ? #1522

alrra · 2014-03-22T21:51:27Z

Previous discussions

Commit in which the change was made: 7a2f9dc
Relevant issues: #335, #1059.

Specification, browsers and validators

A DOCTYPE must consist of the following components, in this order:

A string that is an ASCII → case-insensitive ← match for the string "<!DOCTYPE".

One or more space characters.

A string that is an ASCII → case-insensitive ← match for the string "html".

Optionally, a DOCTYPE legacy string or an obsolete permitted DOCTYPE string (defined below).

Zero or more space characters.

A U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN character (>).

In other words, , case-insensitively.

So, according to the specification, the case doesn't matter. Also, browsers (AFAIK) don't really care, and the W3C validator is fine with either case.

Pros and cons for using `<!doctype html>`

Pros:

usually compresses better
consistency (we don't uppercase html in the doctype declaration, or anything else for that matter)
may spark the developer's curiosity

Cons:

some IDEs/text editors complain about the syntax (IMHO this shouldn't be a concern for H5BP, as it represents a bug in the IDE/text editor, and thus, it should be fixed by them. Going on this path, one can argue that we shouldn't use CSS3 features because some IDEs/text editors complain about the new syntax).
the uppercase form is more commonly used, and thus, it doesn't make developers wonder/curious.

Thoughts?

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roblarsen · 2014-03-22T21:54:41Z

I thought of this as soon as I read that compression article.

mathiasbynens · 2014-03-22T21:57:01Z

Note that the “compresses better” argument is a generalization – it assumes that throughout the rest of the document, the lowercase document characters are more common than uppercase DOCUMENT characters. This may not be true for all documents.

“may spark the developer's curiosity” is subjective – you could say the same thing about <!DoCtYpE hTmL>.

Another reason pro uppercase is polyglot/XHTML compatibility (although XHTML is not something anyone actively wants to support).

necolas · 2014-03-22T22:13:39Z

The compression of 'doctype' vs 'DOCTYPE' is never going to matter.

koistya · 2014-03-23T10:22:13Z

Having DOCTYPE uppercase will keep it consistent with its mentions in docs on WHATWG.

QWp6t · 2014-03-23T12:23:30Z

Having doctype lowercase will keep it consistent with @paulirish.

~~CHECKMATE~~ checkmate.

drublic · 2014-03-24T09:04:42Z

I would be in favor of leaving the doctype as it is, in upper case. There is not a lot of value for any other variant.

exside · 2014-03-24T13:44:16Z

@mathiasbynens I also think the uppercase variant has a slight advantage, as you said, probably not bc somebody wants to support polyglot/XHTML whatever =)...but any xml parser could parse a HTML document with an uppercase doctype while a lower or mixed case one would throw a parse error...not that a lot of people would extensively parse html documents with XML parsers (and also the rest of the tags should then be XHTML compatible, eg. self closing etc.) but who knows when you will, so I don't see anybody hurt due to an uppercase doctype but in the described case that would be possible...at least that's how I understood it =)

paulirish · 2014-03-24T16:42:20Z

some IDEs/text editors complain about the syntax

Cant find evidence of this now, as I think it's been resolved.
Textmate 2: no problem. ST2: no problem. WebStorm 7: no problem. Atom: all good.

So given that, there are no serious reasons we would avoid lower-case.

H5BP rejected supporting polyglot documents a long time ago, it's not worthwhile to try to support it at doctype level and then ignore support for the rest.

I think the lowercase doctype is consistent with the lower-case of the html tags used. Beyond consistency, uppercase is loud, obnoxious and isn't a calm introduction into the HTML source. Google uses the lowercase doctype, along with hundreds of thousands of sites built with earlier h5bp versions.

QWp6t · 2014-03-24T16:48:24Z

@exside that would make it inconsistent with some of the other decisions made by h5bp. You mentioned self-closing tags, for example; h5bp does not have self-closing tags. If doctype should be uppercase for the purpose of being compatible with xml, then everything else should be xml compatible as well.

This isn't intended to say that there are zero reasons for using uppercase, only that the reason you've brought up is an invalid one, or at least inconsistent with some of the other decisions h5bp has made.

exside · 2014-03-25T02:40:42Z

@QWp6t from that point of view, you're definitely right =)...i use my "own" crafted base template which for sure got a good amount of best practices form h5bp, so I didn't have that "pure" h5bp thing in mind when writing that comment, but I liked the strictness of XHTML somehow and thus I'm still writing in an XHTML compliant way (e.g. with self closing tags etc.)

drublic · 2014-04-01T11:08:09Z

What's the conclusion here? I still don't see reasons to change the doctype.

alrra · 2014-04-01T12:47:05Z

I still don't see reasons to change the doctype.

@drublic for me, the main reason for this change is that it feels more consistent with the rest of the code.

sarukuku · 2014-04-01T13:08:41Z

I think the lowercase doctype is consistent with the lower-case of the html tags used. Beyond consistency, uppercase is loud, obnoxious and isn't a calm introduction into the HTML source. Google uses the lowercase doctype, along with hundreds of thousands of sites built with earlier h5bp versions.

Considering the above comment from @paulirish I think I'll vote for the change.

roblarsen · 2014-04-01T14:18:24Z

@alrra Yes, I'm a for

koistya · 2014-04-01T18:34:57Z

I think the lowercase doctype is consistent with the lower-case of the html tags used.

And the other way around, the upper-case will differentiate DOCTYPE declaration string (preamble) from regular html tags.

My 👍 for <!DOCTYPE html>

alrra · 2014-04-02T09:38:20Z

Thank you all for your feedback!

alrra · 2014-04-02T10:41:25Z

If anyone is interested in some stats:

(:warning: please keep in mind that those numbers are not necessarily representative for actual pages with content, so treated them just as fun stats!)

`404.html`

404.html using <!DOCTYPE html>

original size:         1242 B
gzipped size:           580 B
─────────────────────────────
reduction:              662 B [53.3%]

404.html using <!doctype html>

original size:         1242 B
gzipped size:           574 B
─────────────────────────────
reduction:              668 B [53.8%]

`index.html`

index.html using <!DOCTYPE html>

original size:         1760 B
gzipped size:           879 B
─────────────────────────────
reduction:              881 B [50.1%]

index.html using <!doctype html>

original size:         1760 B
gzipped size:           875 B
─────────────────────────────
reduction:              885 B [50.3%]

Return back to the lowercase doctype in order to be more consistent with the lowercase of the html tags. References: * #1522 * http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/syntax.html#the-doctype Close #1522.

h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

…e doctype. Ref h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

IE9 needs standards mode for standard implementation of document.querySelectorAll. - http://stackoverflow.com/a/18404789/319878 Modernise the doctype according to html5-boilerplate: - h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522 - h5bp/html5-boilerplate@e67e9cc

HTML5 the doctype declaration is case-insensitive but here's some reason. Please check this issue h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522 And some popular HTML boilerplate also use a lowercase doctype. - html5-boilerplate: https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/src/index.html#L1 - Web Starter Kit: https://github.com/google/web-starter-kit/blob/master/app/index.html#L1 and google.com too.

Standardized the HTML5 doctype declarations across the app. Lower case was chosen to stick to the standards in HTML5 boilerplate. HTML5 Boilerplate: https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate Doctype Discussion: h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

Return back to the lowercase doctype in order to be more consistent with the lowercase of the html tags. References: * h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522 * http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/syntax.html#the-doctype Close h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522.

…e doctype. Ref h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

See h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

Standardized the HTML5 doctype declarations across the app. Lower case was chosen to stick to the standards in HTML5 boilerplate. HTML5 Boilerplate: https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate Doctype Discussion: h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

alrra changed the title ~~Revert back to using <!doctype html>~~ Revert back to using <!doctype html> ? Mar 22, 2014

drublic added this to the 5.0.0 milestone Mar 24, 2014

alrra closed this as completed Mar 24, 2014

alrra reopened this Mar 24, 2014

alrra added the awaiting feedback label Mar 30, 2014

alrra self-assigned this Mar 31, 2014

alrra removed the awaiting feedback label Apr 2, 2014

alrra changed the title ~~Revert back to using <!doctype html> ?~~ Revert back to <!doctype html> ? Apr 2, 2014

alrra changed the title ~~Revert back to <!doctype html> ?~~ Revert back to using <!doctype html> ? Apr 2, 2014

alrra changed the title ~~Revert back to using <!doctype html> ?~~ Revert back to <!doctype html> ? Apr 2, 2014

alrra closed this as completed in e67e9cc Apr 2, 2014

ericwbailey added a commit to ericwbailey/sublime-snippets that referenced this issue Feb 9, 2015

Lowercase doctype declaration for better compression.

629eb8b

h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

rlovtangen added a commit to rlovtangen/grails-profile-repository that referenced this issue Feb 18, 2015

GRAILS-11998 Align with latest changes to HTML5 Boilerplate. Lowercas…

63d22e1

…e doctype. Ref h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

jurajkapsz mentioned this issue Apr 23, 2015

Doctype now lowercase as per h5bp. symphonists/html5_doctype#13

Merged

arthurvr mentioned this issue Apr 24, 2015

Updates to 404 page yeoman/generator-backbone#334

Merged

thekondrashov mentioned this issue May 23, 2015

lowercase X-UA-Compatible & doctype mdo/code-guide#140

Closed

phanan mentioned this issue Jul 13, 2015

Added the doctype vs DOCTYPE question h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview-Questions#310

Closed

ghost mentioned this issue Aug 30, 2015

Standardized HTML5 Doctype InvoicePlane/InvoicePlane#290

Merged

frenzzy mentioned this issue Sep 29, 2015

DOCTYPE! kriasoft/react-starter-kit#268

Closed

woneob mentioned this issue Nov 5, 2015

Convert the doctype to lowercase jekyll/jekyll#4113

Closed

FagnerMartinsBrack mentioned this issue Mar 11, 2016

Update index.html #1809

Closed

XhmikosR mentioned this issue Jun 2, 2016

Minor HTML tweaks mozilla/srihash.org#127

Merged

jameskleeh pushed a commit to grails-profiles/web that referenced this issue Jul 5, 2016

GRAILS-11998 Align with latest changes to HTML5 Boilerplate. Lowercas…

d5a0575

…e doctype. Ref h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

roblarsen mentioned this issue Mar 15, 2017

doctype uppercase to lowercase Automattic/_s#1093

Merged

bappi mentioned this issue Mar 16, 2017

doctype change uppercase to lowercase Automattic/theme-components#342

Closed

bappi mentioned this issue Apr 26, 2017

doctype uppercase to lowercase laravel/laravel#4241

Merged

bappi mentioned this issue May 14, 2017

doctype in lowercase woocommerce/storefront#574

Merged

ngyikp mentioned this issue Jun 3, 2017

Use lowercase doctype kangax/html-minifier#822

Closed

jonathantneal mentioned this issue Feb 10, 2018

Improve all examples w3c/html#1199

Merged

mathiasbynens mentioned this issue May 19, 2018

Updated doctype case. Github Pages does not recognize lowercase doctype. #2051

Closed

6 tasks

robert-claypool pushed a commit to cumberland-river-compact/icreek that referenced this issue Jul 5, 2018

Lowercase ‘doctype’ will gzip compress better

63bf936

See h5bp/html5-boilerplate#1522

XhmikosR mentioned this issue Aug 17, 2019

Lowercase doctype. nodejs/nodejs.org#2389

Closed

fisker mentioned this issue Sep 22, 2019

Print <!doctype html> lowercase rather than uppercase prettier/prettier#6502

Closed

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Revert back to `<!doctype html>` ? #1522

Revert back to `<!doctype html>` ? #1522

alrra commented Mar 22, 2014

roblarsen commented Mar 22, 2014

mathiasbynens commented Mar 22, 2014

necolas commented Mar 22, 2014

koistya commented Mar 23, 2014

QWp6t commented Mar 23, 2014

drublic commented Mar 24, 2014

exside commented Mar 24, 2014

paulirish commented Mar 24, 2014

QWp6t commented Mar 24, 2014

exside commented Mar 25, 2014

drublic commented Apr 1, 2014

alrra commented Apr 1, 2014

sarukuku commented Apr 1, 2014

roblarsen commented Apr 1, 2014

koistya commented Apr 1, 2014

alrra commented Apr 2, 2014

alrra commented Apr 2, 2014

Revert back to <!doctype html> ? #1522

Revert back to <!doctype html> ? #1522

Comments

alrra commented Mar 22, 2014

Previous discussions

Specification, browsers and validators

Pros and cons for using <!doctype html>

roblarsen commented Mar 22, 2014

mathiasbynens commented Mar 22, 2014

necolas commented Mar 22, 2014

koistya commented Mar 23, 2014

QWp6t commented Mar 23, 2014

drublic commented Mar 24, 2014

exside commented Mar 24, 2014

paulirish commented Mar 24, 2014

QWp6t commented Mar 24, 2014

exside commented Mar 25, 2014

drublic commented Apr 1, 2014

alrra commented Apr 1, 2014

sarukuku commented Apr 1, 2014

roblarsen commented Apr 1, 2014

koistya commented Apr 1, 2014

alrra commented Apr 2, 2014

alrra commented Apr 2, 2014

404.html

index.html

Revert back to `<!doctype html>` ? #1522

Revert back to `<!doctype html>` ? #1522

Pros and cons for using `<!doctype html>`

`404.html`

`index.html`