What does this warning mean from the mark up validator on w3c?

Question

I've tested all the pages of the website I made and it comes up "Passed, 1 warning(s)". And this is what it says:

Using Direct Input mode: UTF-8 character encoding assumed

Unlike the “by URI” and “by File Upload” modes, the “Direct Input” mode of the validator provides validated content in the form of characters pasted or typed in the validator's form field. This will automatically make the data UTF-8, and therefore the validator does not need to determine the character encoding of your document, and will ignore any charset information specified.

If you notice a discrepancy in detected character encoding between the the “Direct Input” mode and other validator modes, this is likely to be the reason. It is neither a bug in the validator, nor in your document.


Anyone know what that means and could tell me? Thanks xx

Answer 1

It just means that if you cut and pasted code into the validator instead of uploading it or pointing the validator at a website address, maybe there's a problem with how it interprets what you pasted in. The problem's not yours and it's not theirs. In other words, if you want to be sure, use one of the other methods.

Answer 2

It means that you copy and pasted your code into the validator. In order to validate the document, it assumes you are using the UTF-8 character codeset, and that was the basis of its validation results.



Post your page to a Web site and you should not see this message again, or add a meta tag that explicitly states the character encoding of the page.

Answer 3

Check your DTD in your website. It may not be correct and make sure the encoding is not sitting some place else in your code.