why and not ?

Question

This is one of those things that you read once, say \"aha!\" and then forget. Exactly my case.

Why is the line-break tag in xhtml preferentially written with a space

Answer 1

A little background to add to Matt Hamilton's answer.

A least one problem browser was Netscape 4. A quick check shows that in that browser,
(i.e. no space) doesn't cause a line break. In fact, it doesn't appear to do anything.
(i.e. with space) does perform a line break.

When creating polyglot documents that can behave as XHTML or HTML (Note: "behave as" - not "valid") it's necessary to use either
or

. However, when parsed as HTML,
is treated as if it was
, so

produces two line breaks.