What does the search_/> do in this HTML code?

Question

This is a part of the code I found for a new tab page for firefox.

<input class="searchBar search_google"
       type="text" name="q" 
       placeholder="Google" search_/>

I don't understand the last part search_/> of the code. Can anyone explain me?

Is it from inspector of your browser or you got it from page source? — MAZux, Mar 05 '17 at 08:40
It's just an HTML attribute. What it means in terms of the appearance or behaviour of the element will depend on the active CSS and JS. — jonrsharpe, Mar 05 '17 at 08:41
It is from the page source. What kind of attribute is it, and what does it do? — Bibek Shah, Mar 05 '17 at 08:46
The list of attributes for the `` tag in [w3schools](https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_input.asp) does not state the attribute called `search_`. — Bibek Shah, Mar 05 '17 at 08:55
exactly, so someone's adding that attribute to use for themselves for some reason. — A. L, Mar 05 '17 at 08:56

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 05 '17 at 08:57

1

the search_/> is equivalent to search_="" /> where the /> is simply closing the input element and the search_="" is declaring an attribute search_ that has no value set.

I assume that the coder originally had a search attribute to request that the server carry out a search operation (of some kind or other) then later on they added an underscore to "comment it out" thus leaving a visible reminder search_ ready if they want to reverse their decision.

answered Mar 05 '17 at 08:57

GavinBrelstaff

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Can I declare any new attribute with any name in HTML? – Bibek Shah Mar 05 '17 at 09:00
There are some rules see: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/925994/what-characters-are-allowed-in-an-html-attribute-name – GavinBrelstaff Mar 05 '17 at 09:03

What does the search_/> do in this HTML code?

1 Answers1