Can we improve the error message: "The biography has unmatched <ref> tags" No. 2.

Question

The "The biography has unmatched <ref> tags." warning certainly has allowed me to find some of my typing errors.

There is a special case where the error message displays, if you save anyway - the display is fine.

The example is <ref name = Ref>

When changed to <ref name=Ref> everything is fine.  So the system sees the extra space as an error.

Hopefully correcting the message will help others.

Comments

... or relax the syntax checker a bit.

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Spaces count, just as letter, number, and punctuation count. Perhaps the error message should note that!

Seriously though, the error message should tell us to check for spacing mismatches, as well as spelling errors and transposed/omitted/doubled letters/numbers/punctuation.

We should be reminded that there is generally no margin for error in the coding for links, templates, citations, etc.

Answer 1

Hi Philip,

I'll put it on our to-do list. Thanks!