Default id attribute for form field 'id-field' should be avoided

[daveyjoe]

When django returns a HTML form element generated by the form class it typically looks like:

<label for="id_email">Email:</label> <input id="id_email" type="text" name="email" maxlength="75" />

An id with an underscore in it should be avoided for compatibility and historical reasons, as detailed in the following article: ​https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Underscores_in_class_and_ID_Names

I suggest the following as a typical output instead:

<label for="id-email">Email:</label> <input id="id-email" type="text" name="email" maxlength="75" />

This change would be backwards incompatible. I reccommend implementing it as a hidden option until 2.0 and then use 'id-field' as the default option.

[Brian Rosner]

You can already control the default auto id that Django gives in that attribute. Using the auto_id keyword argument on the Form allows you to control how it is created. The current default is id_%s. That article is a little over seven years old and for those that actually need to do this they can override that keyword argument.

[daveyjoe]

I understand that it is perfectly possible to change the attribute using the auto_id keyword but surely django's default should not be something which is actually not permitted under the CSS1 and CSS2 specifications.

I'm not suggesting that the change be made right away, I'm simply suggesting that this should be fixed for the next release which will introduce backwards incompatible changes (2.0 as far as I know).

I'm going to reopen this ticket just once because I think it needs to be reassessed.

[Brian Rosner]

Please do not reopen this ticket. If it is wontfix'ed please take the discussion to django-developers. Then if there is a consensus that maybe I overlooked something then it can be reopened citing the discussion. I am still standing in what I said. While I see that it is not permitted, it does work. If it didn't work then I am sure that in the year's existence of newforms that this would have been addressed before. I can see reasoning for using an underscore over an hypen due to possible issues in Javascript.

If you have a stronger argument I would appreciate hearing it, on django-developers of course. :)

Oh, I also just noticed #8440. It has been addressed in CSS 2.1.

[daveyjoe]

Ok, thanks for the detailed reply.

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Milestone post-1.0 deleted