What are void elements in HTML?

beginner

Re-explain

Void elements are HTML elements that can never have content or child elements, so they have only a start tag and no closing tag. They are also called empty elements. Common examples:

<br> for a line break
<hr> for a horizontal rule
<img> for an image
<input> for a form input
<meta> for metadata
<link> for an external resource link

HTML has no self-closing tags. A trailing slash, as in <br />, changes nothing because the parser ignores it. On a normal element, <div /> does not close the <div>.

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Same slash, two different DOM trees

<br /><p>Hi</p>

<div /><p>Hi</p>

Void element<br /><p>Hi</p>

Normal element<div /><p>Hi</p>

1step

br is a void element, so it never holds content. The parser closes it with or without the slash, so the next tag goes into body.

1 / 4

The parser ignores a trailing slash. A void br ends anyway, but a div stays open, so the p after it lands inside the div.

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