Page 59 - HTML5

Chapter 9: Data Attributes

Syntax

• <element data-custom-name="somevalue">

Parameters

Value Description

somevalue Specifies the value of the attribute (as a string)

Examples

Data Attribute Use

HTML5 data-* attributes provide a convenient way to store data in HTML elements. The stored
data can be read or modified using JavaScript

<div data-submitted="yes" class="user_profile">
… some content …
</div>

• Data attribute structure is data-*, i.e. the name of the data attribute comes after the data-
part. Using this name, the attribute can be accessed.

• Data in string format (including json) can be stored using data-* attribute.

Older browsers support

Data attributes were introduced in HTML5 which is supported by all modern browsers, but older
browsers before HTML5 don't recognize the data attributes.

However, in HTML specifications, attributes that are not recognized by the browser must be left
alone and the browser will simply ignore them when rendering the page.

Web developers have utilized this fact to create non-standard attributes which are any attributes
not part of the HTML specifications. For example, the value attribute in the line bellow is
considered a non-standard attribute because the specifications for the <img> tag don't have a value
attribute and it is not a global attribute:

<img src="sample.jpg" value="test" />

This means that although data attributes are not supported in older browsers, they still work and
you can set and retrieve them using the same generic JavaScript setAttribute and getAttribute

https://riptutorial.com/ 43