A.1 Name Tokens

In HTML, certain attribute can only be assigned values known as name tokens. Name tokens are ASCII character strings composed of the letters a-z or A-Z, the digits (0-9), dashes (-) and periods (.), but nothing else. In addition, a name token must begin with a letter. Thus the string "alt5" is a valid name token, while "5alt" is not.

Name tokens are assigned to attributes as you would expect, for example

<A NAME="alt5">some text</a>

assigns the name token "alt5" to the attribute NAME. You actually do not need the quotation marks around the name token, but it is good practice to include them, as it helps to mark out the important nature of the string.

A.1.1 Case Sensitivity

Name tokens, as used in HTML, are often case insensitive, but this is not always the case. The rule is -- be careful!

A.1.2 Multiple Name Tokens

Certain attributes can be assigned more than one name token at the same time. In this case, you specify the name tokens in a single line, separating the tokens by space characters. For example

  REL="parent home index"

Note that you absolutely need the double quotes, to indicate that the string of name tokens does not stop at the first space character.