Title: header.php does not validate. Shouldn’t it?
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# header.php does not validate. Shouldn’t it?

 *  [kmessinger](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kmessinger/)
 * (@kmessinger)
 * [18 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/headerphp-does-not-validate-shouldnt-it/)
 * It had be a while since I validated my site so I expected to find some problems.
 * In going to [http://validator.w3.org/](http://validator.w3.org/) I was surprised
   that the header.php for the default theme did not validate as XHTML Transitional.
   I knew there was no closing tag for <div> on line 29 but all else should validate
   AFAIK. There seems to be a particular problem with picking up php as in <? as
   character data which is nothing I can correct.
 * Where do I go from here?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Thread Starter [kmessinger](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kmessinger/)
 * (@kmessinger)
 * [18 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/headerphp-does-not-validate-shouldnt-it/#post-760594)
 * I will bump this back to page 1 one time.
 * I don’t know anything about php but I am surprised the header (2.5.1) does not
   validate. I know 2.3 did. Guess I better check it again . . .
 * But I would appreciate some insight here.
 *  [wp_guy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp_guy/)
 * (@wp_guy)
 * [18 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/headerphp-does-not-validate-shouldnt-it/#post-760599)
 * Raw PHP files don’t validate, because they contain PHP code, and PHP code isn’t
   HTML.
 * Try validating the whole site instead of just the PHP files.
 *  Thread Starter [kmessinger](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kmessinger/)
 * (@kmessinger)
 * [18 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/headerphp-does-not-validate-shouldnt-it/#post-760604)
 * Thank you! I think I used to know that . . . more brain cells seem to be missing.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘header.php does not validate. Shouldn’t it?’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [header](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/header/)
 * [validation](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/validation/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [kmessinger](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kmessinger/)
 * Last activity: [18 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/headerphp-does-not-validate-shouldnt-it/#post-760604)
 * Status: not resolved

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