1346281 - Contradictory advice in Mozilla developer Web API Element.setAttribute() docs

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Developer Documentation Graveyard :: General, defect, P5)

Description

[karen_dolan]

:: Developer Documentation Request

      Request Type: Correction
     Gecko Version: unspecified
 Technical Contact: 

:: Details

The Mozilla dev setAttribute documentation says:
  "elt.setAttribute(attr, null) [...] will coerce the null value to the string "null", which is likely not what you want."

Then a few lines later says:
 "To set an attribute that takes no value, such as the autoplay attribute of an <audio> element, use a null or empty value. For example: elt.setAttribute('autoplay', '')" . It just said it's ok to null OR empty value there!

So, is it Ok or not Ok to use elt.setAttribute(attr, null)?

FYI - According to W3C, to set an attribute that takes no value... don't use null:
"Empty attribute syntax
Just the attribute name. The value is implicitly the empty string."
The attribute’s name is the value of attribute name, its value is the empty string."
https://www.w3.org/TR/html/syntax.html#syntax-attr-empty

Comment 1

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

I've updated the Element.setAttribute() page accordingly. I've made numerous other improvements, too. Still needs a browser compat table, but it's progress.