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HTML Script tag: type or language (or omit both)?

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What is script type in HTML?

scripttype. Specifies the type of the script. Some common values: A JavaScript MIME type like: application/javascript (default) or application/ecmascript.

What is the difference between script type and script language attribute?

The language attribute was used when <script> was introduced in HTML 3.2 and took a language name (such as JavaScript ). The type attribute replaced it in HTML 4.0 (as everything describing non-HTML media started taking MIME types) and takes a MIME type (such as text/javascript ).

What are different types of script tags?

async: It is used to specify the script is executed asynchronously. charset: It is used to specify the character encoding used in an external script file. defer: It is used to specify that the script is executed when the page has finished parsing. src: It is used to specify the URL of an external script file.

Can there be two script tags in HTML?

Yes, we can write any number of tags inside tag. And browser access them in sequential order.


The language attribute has been deprecated for a long time, and should not be used.

When W3C was working on HTML5, they discovered all browsers have "text/javascript" as the default script type, so they standardized it to be the default value. Hence, you don't need type either.

For pages in XHTML 1.0 or HTML 4.01 omitting type is considered invalid. Try validating the following:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<script src="http://example.com/test.js"></script>
</head>
<body/>
</html>

You will be informed of the following error:

Line 4, Column 41: required attribute "type" not specified

So if you're a fan of standards, use it. It should have no practical effect, but, when in doubt, may as well go by the spec.


HTML4/XHTML1 requires

<script type="...">...</script>

HTML5 faces the fact that there is only one scripting language on the web, and allows

<script>...</script>

The latter works in any browser that supports scripting (NN2+).


The type attribute is used to define the MIME type within the HTML document. Depending on what DOCTYPE you use, the type value is required in order to validate the HTML document.

The language attribute lets the browser know what language you are using (Javascript vs. VBScript) but is not necessarily essential and, IIRC, has been deprecated.