XSLT Output to HTML

[Padrill]

I read in Bob DuCharme XSLT Quikly book that the output method="HTML" is used to allow tags such as <br> in the stylesheet. However Marrowsoft Xselerator, MSXSL and Xalan don't process the file but throw an error that <br> doesn't have a closing tag.

If Bob DuCharme is wrong what's the difference between using HTML and XML as output methods (since XHTML is valid XML)?

[brendandonhue]

All tags in XHTML must be closed.
<br> Becomes <br></br>
XHTML allows a quicker version
<br/>
But that causes problems in older browsers. Adding a space helps older browsers to render it correctly.
A <br> in XHTML is
<br />

[Charles]

It is a bit confusing, but your "literal result elements" need to follow the XML rules so that the whole stylesheet is a valid XML document. When generating HTML the processor will convert <br/> and <br></br> to <br>. You might also find that some processor drops some or all tags that are optional in HTML.

[Padrill]

Thanx Charles.