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Hi w3 team, In the spec colspan is suggest to be a positive integer (1+), and row span is suggested as non-negative integer (0+), however the nightly spec reports that these values are unsigned integers and should return a default value of one. So I believe both colspan and rowspan are really positive integers and as such the spec should no seek to confuse people (the wiki appears to have this correct). Also, I don't see why the rowspan and colspan attribute can't support the value "*", this would simplify the creation of tables with alternative layouts or multiple tbody elements. The attribute should attempt to span an any remaining cells or rows
In HTML4, the value 0 means "span to the end of the rows/columns". The state of this in HTML5 is unclear; for one thing most UAs never implemented this part of HTML4. In particular, no one implemented it for colspan, but some did implement it for rowspan.
So does this mean that the UA's are having issues reading the spec, with the positive int vs non-negative int. Based on the fact you have stated that some UA's are rendering correctly for row span which is defined as "non-negative integer". Zero (0) is an acceptable answer for this to happen (to automatically span the remaining cells or rows) since "*" is a hangon from framesets.
> So does this mean that the UA's are having issues reading the spec, No, just that some of them don't want to spend the time making spanning all rows work.
> No, just that some of them don't want to spend the time making spanning all rows work. You mean they don't want to waste time meeting the spec of HTML 4, which is why we have cross browser issues. I wish I could get away with not meeting my specification.
(In reply to Shaun Forsyth from comment #4) > You mean they don't want to waste time meeting the spec of HTML 4, which is > why we have cross browser issues. I wish I could get away with not meeting > my specification. Shaun, if your specifications were like HTML4 you couldn't meet them either. That's why HTML5 tightens things up so drastically in comparison. (Moving to the right component.)
HTML5.1 Bugzilla Bug Triage: Works for me Looks like the current W3C document has harmonized on the original definitions (+1) for colspan and (+0) for rowspan. If there are additional table features, they should probably be incubated instead (or see below to file a new issue). If this resolution is not satisfactory, please copy the relevant bug details/proposal into a new issue at the W3C HTML5 Issue tracker: https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/new where it will be re-triaged. Thanks!
Oh, and link to the draft: http://w3c.github.io/html/tabular-data.html#attributes-common-to-td-and-th-elements