What is the difference between HTML tags and elements?
I notice that most people use the words HTML tags and HTML elements interchangeably.
But what is the difference between them?
The way I see it is that tags are in the source code and elements are processed tags (by the browser) in the DOM. Am I wrong?
Solution 1:
HTML tag is just opening or closing entity. For example:
<p> and </p> are called HTML tags
HTML element encompasses opening tag, closing tag, content (optional for content-less tags) Eg:
<p>This is the content</p> : This complete thing is called a HTML element
Solution 2:
HTML tags vs. elements vs. attributes
HTML elements
An element in HTML represents some kind of structure or semantics and generally consists of a start tag, content, and an end tag. The following is a paragraph element:
<p> This is the content of the paragraph element. </p>HTML tags
Tags are used to mark up the start and end of an HTML element.
<p></p>
HTML attributes
An attribute defines a property for an element, consists of an attribute/value pair, and appears within the element’s start tag. An element’s start tag may contain any number of space separated attribute/value pairs.
The most popular misuse of the term “tag” is referring to alt attributes as “alt tags”. There is no such thing in HTML. Alt is an attribute, not a tag.
<img src="foobar.gif" alt="A foo can be balanced on a bar by placing its fubar on the bar's foobar.">
Source: 456bereastreet.com: HTML tags vs. elements vs. attributes
Solution 3:
HTML Elements
An HTML element usually consists of a start tag and end tag, with the content inserted in between:
<tagname>Content goes here...</tagname>
The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag. Source
HTML Attributes
An attribute is used to define the characteristics of an HTML element and is placed inside the element's opening tag. All attributes are made up of two parts: a name and a value.
- All HTML elements can have attributes
- Attributes provide additional information about an element
- Attributes are always specified in the start tag
- Attributes usually come in name/value pairs like: name="value" Source
HTML Tag vs Element
"Elements" and "tags" are terms that are widely confused. HTML documents contain tags, but do not contain the elements. The elements are only generated after the parsing step, from these tags. Source: wikipedia > HTML_element
An HTML element is defined by a starting tag. If the element contains other content, it ends with a closing tag.
For example <p> is starting tag of a paragraph and </p> is closing tag of the same paragraph but <p>This is paragraph</p> is a paragraph element.
Source:tutorialspoint > html_elements
Solution 4:
lets put this in a simple term. An element is a set of opening and closing tags in use.
Element
<h1>...</h1>
Tag H1 opening tag
<h1>
H1 closing tag
</h1>
Solution 5:
http://html.net/tutorials/html/lesson3.php
Tags are labels you use to mark up the begining and end of an element.
All tags have the same format: they begin with a less-than sign "<" and end with a greater-than sign ">".
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of tags - opening tags:
<html>and closing tags:</html>. The only difference between an opening tag and a closing tag is the forward slash "/". You label content by putting it between an opening tag and a closing tag.HTML is all about elements. To learn HTML is to learn and use different tags.
For example:
<h1></h1>
Where as elements are something that consists of start tag and end tag as shown:
<h1>Heading</h1>