# 9. XHTML Hypertext Module

Contents

This section is informative. For the normative version, see [XHTML2].

The Hypertext Module provides an element that traditionally has been used in HTML to define hypertext links to other resources. Although all elements may now play the role of a hyperlink (using the @href attribute) or hyperlink anchor (using the @id attribute), this element remains for explicit markup of links, though is otherwise identical in semantics to the span element.

This module supports the following element:

Element | Attributes | Minimal Content Model
--- | --- | ---
a | Common | (PCDATA | Text)*

This module adds the a element to the Text content set of the Text Module and the access element to the head element of the Document module.

Implementations: RELAX NG, XML Schema

## 9.1. The a element

An a element defines an anchor. Since hypertext attributes such as @href may be applied to any element, this element is not strictly necessary, being equivalent to a span, but has been retained to allow the expression of explicit links.

Attributes

The Common collection
  A collection of other attribute collections, including: Bi-directional, Core, Edit, Embedding, Events, Hypertext, I18N, Map, and Metainformation

Example

    <a href="http://www.w3.org/">The W3C Home Page</a>