The BASE element allows global reference information to be set. Use
of the HREF attribute provides a base address for interpreting all
relative URL references in a document when the document is read out
of context. The TARGET attribute specifies a global frame destination
name to be used for page activation changes (in links, forms and image maps.)
Description:
Indicates the base URL to interpret relative URLS in the current document.
Values:
Should be an absolute URL (no relative references.)
Target
[2|3|3.2|4]
[X1|X1.1]
[IE3A1|M|N2|O2.1]
Standards Details:
Transitional/Frameset HTML 4.x/XHTML 1.0 DTDs only. Dropped in XHTML 1.1.
Required? No
Description:
Specifies the common Target frame for hyperlinks to load to when
activated. The value for this attribute can be overridden on a
case-by-case basis by indicating a different value in an
A, AREA,
or FORM element.
Values:
Alphanumeric string representing the destination frame name. Special
reserved TARGET names apply here as well.
DTD Note: Both the Internet Explorer 3 DTD and the
HTML 4.0 DTD allow for the TARGET attribute. They both list the
HREF attribute as #REQUIRED. This is fine, but this
seems to only hold if the browser does not support global
frame targeting. In the case of a frames-capable browser, the value would
more likely be #IMPLIED (not required.) This
would allow for a BASE element with TARGET as the only attribute
(which seems reasonable since HREF and TARGET control two mutually
exclusive browser features (name resolution and frame targeting.)
Browser Peculiarities
Some older browsers may improperly handle the BASE element if the TARGET
attribute is present because they are expecting only the HREF attribute
by itself.
Netscape and Opera both ignore improperly terminated URLs used as the
BASE HREF value. eg: relative URLs in a document that used
"http://www.blooberry.com" as the HREF would resolve to "http://[relative
URL]", and "http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot" would resolve to
"http://www.blooberry.com/[relative URL]". To prevent this problem, use
a trailing "/" character to properly terminate the URL. Internet
Explorer, by the way, accepts both URL forms.