On Tuesday, Oct 28, 2003, at 15:02 Europe/London, Emlyn Addison wrote:
> I discovered an unusual conflict in the <label> requirements for HTML 
> forms. It seems that the "id" attribute in a form element must contain 
> the same name as the "for" attribute in the <label> tag in order for 
> these to be related.

It is probably better to think of that the other way around...

The id attribute of an element just gives it a unique identifier which 
can be referenced by a number of technologies, including the for 
attribute of labels, the CSS id selector, and the JavaScript/DOM 
document.getElementById().

It isn't true anyway, <label>Foo <input></label> relates the label to 
the input as well... although browser support isn't as good.

> But if that form element already had a CSS "id" attribute associated 
> with it (for stylistic reasons)

There is no such thing as a CSS id attribute. CSS has an id selector 
which lets you match a style to an element based on its unique 
identifier.

> , then the <label> tag cannot be associated with it. For example:
>  
> <label for="fname">First name:</label> <input type="text" 
> name="firstname" id="redBorder" value="">

<label for="redBorder">

... but that's a very bad id for an element. "This element is the one 
and only thing called redBorder"?!

You are aware that you can't reuse an id in a document, even if certain 
browsers[1] let you get away with it? It sounds like you:

a) Need to be using classes
and
b) Need to rethink your names

I suspect that something along the lines of class="required" is in 
order.

[1] Insert unprintable comments about a Redmond based company

--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/