Attribute

An attribute extends an HTML or XML element, changing its behavior or providing metadata.

An attribute always has the form name="value" (the attribute's identifier followed by its associated value).

You may see attributes without an equals sign or a value. That is a shorthand for providing the empty string in HTML; such attributes are considered to be boolean attributes. However, this is not allowed in XML: XML requires the equals sign followed by the attribute name.

The following code provides examples of different boolean attribute forms in HTML:

html
<input required />
<!-- is equivalent to -->
<input required="" />
<!-- or -->
<input required="anything" />

In XML, attributes without equals sign or value will throw a syntax error:

xml
<tag id />

Reflection of an attribute

Attributes may be reflected into a particular property of the specific interface. It means that the value of the attribute can be read by accessing the property, and can be modified by setting the property to a different value.

For example, the placeholder below is reflected into HTMLInputElement.placeholder.

Considering the following HTML:

html
<input placeholder="Original placeholder" />

We can check the reflection between HTMLInputElement.placeholder and the attribute using:

js
const input = document.querySelector("input");
const attr = input.getAttributeNode("placeholder");
console.log(attr.value);
console.log(input.placeholder); // Prints the same value as `attr.value`

// Changing placeholder value will also change the value of the reflected attribute.
input.placeholder = "Modified placeholder";
console.log(attr.value); // Prints `Modified placeholder`

See also