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cite (HTML attribute)

Spec
Depr. Version
No HTML 4
Browser support (more…)
IE8 FF3.5 SA4 OP10 CH2
None None None None None

Syntax

cite="uri"

Description

Perhaps the reason why the ins element was used to change the page content is explained in an external document. In such cases, you can use the cite attribute to point users to that document.

Example

The cite attribute is used in conjunction with both the del and ins elements below:

<p>Bernie enjoyed nothing more than a <del
    cite="http://berniesworld.com/drag.html"
    datetime="2007-11-05T23:31:05Z">night out on the town at his
    favorite drag queen show</del> <ins
     cite="http://berniesworld.com/drag.html"
    datetime="2007-11-05T23:33:32Z">quiet night in with a warm cup of
    cocoa</ins></p>

Value

This element takes as its value a reference to another document in the form of a URI.

Compatibility

Internet Explorer Firefox Safari Opera Chrome
5.5 6.0 7.0 8.0 1.0 1.5 2.0 3.0 3.5 1.3 2.0 3.1 4.0 9.2 9.5 10.0 2.0
None None None None None None None None None None None None None None None None None

None of the browsers we tested do anything useful with the cite attribute. It would be possible to use DOM scripting to retrieve this information for some purpose, but natively, the most that any of the tested browsers can do with cite is shown in the Firefox screenshot in Figure 1. To access this information, I had to right-click on the text and select Properties from the menu that displayed.

Figure 1. The properties of cite as discovered in Firefox Firefox showing ins and del attributes in properties

Given that no visual clue is provided to indicate that the ins and del content has anything extra to reveal, few people would ever discover this information. And even if they did, the URI of the document isn’t clickable, nor is the date formatted in a friendly way.

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