W3 validator

Hi guys,
W3C MarkUp Validation Service is giving me an error message
regarding the tag:

<area shape="rect" coords="267, 1, 333, 61" href="mailto:c.cista@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="Contact me">


the errors reported are:

Line 47, column 105: cannot generate system identifier for general entity "subject"
...ta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="C
^
Line 47, column 105: general entity "subject" not defined and no default entity (explain...).
' ...ta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="C
^
Line 47, column 112: reference to entity "subject" for which no system identifier could be generated
...s.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="Contact
^
Line 47, column 104: entity was defined here
...sta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="

I've tried the solution proposed by the website itself,
and it didn't give me the error message anymore, but then the '&subject' command didn't work.

Is anyone able to explain me why this is happening?:confused:

Originally posted by aguilera
<area shape="rect" coords="267, 1, 333, 61" href="mailto:c.cista@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="Contact me">


the errors reported are:

Line 47, column 105: cannot generate system identifier for general entity "subject"
...ta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="C
^
Line 47, column 105: general entity "subject" not defined and no default entity (explain...).
' ...ta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="C
^
Line 47, column 112: reference to entity "subject" for which no system identifier could be generated
...s.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="Contact
^
Line 47, column 104: entity was defined here
...sta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt="


I think you should replace special characters with entities.
Most problems is caused by ampersand, which seems to be a problem also in this case (validator reads characters after & as entity declarations).

Replace ampersands with :
&amp;amp;

Hi Zvona,
thanks for your help,
unfortunately this suggestion doesn't seem to solve the problem.
Using '&amp' instead of '&' I got the following error:

Line 47, column 105: cannot generate system identifier for general entity "ampsubject"

...ta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&ampsubject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt

I've tried substituting '&' with ';', which didn't give error in Validator but unfortunately does not work fine on the web site.

So, I'm still looking for a solution,
please get back to me if you have any other idea!!

Much appreciated!

Hi all,
I've actually found out the solution to this problem
I'd just like to share it with you now.

The correct sintax for the '&subject' element in the 'href="mailto:'
attribute is: &amp;subject

this way the validator accepts the code and it works fine on the web site!

Hope this could be helpful to somebody else! ;)

Originally posted by aguilera
Hi Zvona,
thanks for your help,
unfortunately this suggestion doesn't seem to solve the problem.
Using '&amp' instead of '&' I got the following error:

Line 47, column 105: cannot generate system identifier for general entity "ampsubject"

...ta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&ampsubject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt

I've tried substituting '&' with ';', which didn't give error in Validator but unfortunately does not work fine on the web site.


Your string should look like:
...ta@lycos.co.uk?cc=cistacr@ie.ibm.com&amp;amp;subject=Cri%20HomePage%20Comment" alt

Then it should work.