Can I ignore the element in HTML 5?

Question

i have seen some HTML5 designers ignoring the element <tbody> when marking up a table. They only use the <thead> and <tfoot> elements instead. Can this be considered a good practice and following good standards in HTML5?

This question based on my previous question which can be found at:

thead, tfoot and tbody order in HTML5

My previous question was about the order of using <thead><tbody><tfoot> and this question is about the possibilty of removing the <tbody> at all from the markup.

[relevant](http://stackoverflow.com/a/7491000/497418) – zzzzBov Sep 20 '13 at 18:34 — zzzzBov, Sep 20 '13 at 18:34

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 20 '13 at 18:31

6

The <tbody> element will automatically be inserted around <tr> elements if you do not add it, in the same way that <body> will be wrapped around the contents of the page.

It is for this reason that I recommend explicitly adding <tbody> elements, so that there is no confusion when an implied tbody element gets styled in CSS.

answered Sep 20 '13 at 18:31

zzzzBov

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@SheikhHeera, not a problem; it's easy to misread. I can't tell you how many times people have called me "zzzzBoy", which I find absolutely infuriating. – zzzzBov Sep 20 '13 at 18:43
I've made it better now. – The Alpha Sep 20 '13 at 18:43
This is almost a “primarily ipinion-based” question, but the point about avoiding confusion is a rather solid technical argument in favor of explicit `` tags. It matters in scripting and styling, acting as a reminder: a `tr` element is never a child of a `table` element. – Jukka K. Korpela Sep 20 '13 at 19:24

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

In HTML5 spec, it states clearly about table

In this order: optionally a caption element, followed by zero or more colgroup elements, followed optionally by a thead element, followed optionally by a tfoot element, followed by either zero or more tbody elements or one or more tr elements, followed optionally by a tfoot element (but there can only be one tfoot element child in total).

It's optional but good practice to explicitly add it, as other answer also mentioned that, I agree with zzzzBov.

Can I ignore the element in HTML 5?

2 Answers2