link
elementnoscript
element that is a child of a head
element.href
rel
media
hreflang
type
sizes
title
attribute has special semantics on this element.interface HTMLLinkElement : HTMLElement {
attribute boolean disabled;
attribute DOMString href;
attribute DOMString rel;
readonly attribute DOMTokenList relList;
attribute DOMString media;
attribute DOMString hreflang;
attribute DOMString type;
[PutForwards=value] readonly attribute DOMSettableTokenList sizes;
};
HTMLLinkElement implements LinkStyle;
The link
element allows authors to link their document to other resources.
The destination of the link(s) is given by the href
attribute, which must be present and must contain a valid non-empty URL potentially surrounded by spaces.
A link
element must have rel
attribute.
The types of link indicated (the relationships) are given by the value of the rel
attribute, which, if present, must have a value that is a set of space-separated tokens. The allowed keywords and their meanings are defined in a later section.
Two categories of links can be created using the link
element: Links to external resources and hyperlinks. The link types section defines whether a particular link type is an external resource or a hyperlink. One link
element can create multiple links (of which some might be external resource links and some might be hyperlinks); exactly which and how many links are created depends on the keywords given in the rel
attribute. User agents must process the links on a per-link basis, not a per-element basis.
Each link created for a link
element is handled separately. For instance, if there are two link
elements with rel="stylesheet"
, they each count as a separate external resource, and each is affected by its own attributes independently. Similarly, if a single link
element has a rel
attribute with the value next stylesheet
, it creates both a hyperlink (for the next
keyword) and an external resource link (for the stylesheet
keyword), and they are affected by other attributes (such as media
or title
) differently.
The exact behavior for links to external resources depends on the exact relationship, as defined for the relevant link type. Some of the attributes control whether or not the external resource is to be applied (as defined below).
Hyperlinks created with the link
element and its rel
attribute apply to the whole page. This contrasts with the rel
attribute of a
and area
elements, which indicates the type of a link whose context is given by the link's location within the document.
The media
attribute says which media the resource applies to. The value must be a valid media query.
The default, if the media
attribute is omitted, is "all
", meaning that by default links apply to all media.
The hreflang
attribute on the link
element has the same semantics as the hreflang
attribute on a
and area
elements.
The type
attribute gives the MIME type of the linked resource. It is purely advisory. The value must be a valid MIME type.
For external resource links, the type
attribute is used as a hint to user agents so that they can avoid fetching resources they do not support.
The title
attribute gives the title of the link. With one exception, it is purely advisory. The value is text. The exception is for style sheet links, where the title
attribute defines alternative style sheet sets.
The title
attribute on link
elements differs from the global title
attribute of most other elements in that a link without a title does not inherit the title of the parent element: it merely has no title.
The sizes
attribute is used with the icon
link type. The attribute must not be specified on link
elements that do not have a rel
attribute that specifies the icon
keyword.
The IDL attributes href
, rel
, media
, hreflang
, and type
, and sizes
each must reflect the respective content attributes of the same name.
The IDL attribute relList
reflect the rel
content attribute.
The IDL attribute disabled
only applies to style sheet links. When the link
element defines a style sheet link, then the disabled
attribute behaves as defined for the alternative style sheets DOM. For all other link
elements it always return false and does nothing on setting.
The LinkStyle
interface is also implemented by this element; the styling processing model defines how. [CSSOM]
Here, a set of link
elements provide some style sheets:
<!-- a persistent style sheet --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css"> <!-- the preferred alternate style sheet --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="green.css" title="Green styles"> <!-- some alternate style sheets --> <link rel="alternate stylesheet" href="contrast.css" title="High contrast"> <link rel="alternate stylesheet" href="big.css" title="Big fonts"> <link rel="alternate stylesheet" href="wide.css" title="Wide screen">
The following example shows how you can specify versions of the page that use alternative formats, are aimed at other languages, and that are intended for other media:
<link rel=alternate href="/en/html" hreflang=en type=text/html title="English HTML"> <link rel=alternate href="/fr/html" hreflang=fr type=text/html title="French HTML"> <link rel=alternate href="/en/html/print" hreflang=en type=text/html media=print title="English HTML (for printing)"> <link rel=alternate href="/fr/html/print" hreflang=fr type=text/html media=print title="French HTML (for printing)"> <link rel=alternate href="/en/pdf" hreflang=en type=application/pdf title="English PDF"> <link rel=alternate href="/fr/pdf" hreflang=fr type=application/pdf title="French PDF">