Spec missusing the samp tag?

[felixsanz]

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#the-samp-element

The samp element represents sample or quoted output from another program or computing system.

---

This second example shows a block of sample output. Nested samp and kbd elements allow for the styling of specific elements of the sample output using a style sheet. There's also a few parts of the samp that are annotated with even more detailed markup, to enable very precise styling. To achieve this, span elements are used.

<pre><samp><span class=​"prompt">jdoe@​mowmow:​~$</span> <kbd>ssh demo.example.com</kbd>
Last login:​ Tue Apr 12 09:​10:​17 2005 from mowmow.example.com on pts/1
Linux demo 2.6.10-grsec+gg3+e+fhs6b+nfs+gr0501+++p3+c4a+gr2b-reslog-v6.189 #1 SMP Tue Feb 1 11:​22:​36 PST 2005 i686 unknown

<span class=​"prompt">jdoe@​demo:​~$</span> <span class=​"cursor">_</span></samp></pre>

I'm curious here. Samp tags represent output from another program. But the ssh command is not output actually, it's input.

So i would only wrap the above as this:

<pre><samp>
Last login:​ Tue Apr 12 09:​10:​17 2005 from mowmow\.example\.com on pts/1
Linux demo 2\.6\.10\-grsec\+gg3\+e\+fhs6b\+nfs\+gr0501\+\+\+p3\+c4a\+gr2b\-reslog\-v6\.189 
</samp></pre>

Why? Because as i said, the commands like ssh are actually input and they are generated by the human. Those bits are not output from computer.

The same as if you run this command:

node -e "console.log('foo')"

That is javascript that prints "foo" in screen. foo is the output and should be wrapped inside samp tags. But the above bits are input so i would use a <code> tag for it, and use something like language-shell, or bash, or whatever (i'm not sure about the correct "language" of command execution/interpreters).

But definitely not output, and i think abusing the output tag <samp> to show input it's a bad decission and should be modified in the spec.

[domenic]

Interesting find!

I think the program in question is the console, not ssh itself. This appears to be a sample of a console session, not a sample of ssh output.

It might be worth adding a note, or even a third example, clarifying this. E.g. modify the existing example to say "... a block of sample output from a console session", then adding a third example saying something like

The above example used samp to denote the output of a console session, as that was the program under discussion. In the following example, the ssh command is under discusison, and so only its output is marked up with samp:

<p>When you use the <kbd>ssh</kbd> command, you'll see output similar to the following as its first line, after entering <kbd>ssh demo.example.com</kbd>:</p>
<pre><samp>Last login: Tue Apr 12 09:10:17 2005 from mowmow.example.com on pts/1</samp></pre>

What do you think?

[felixsanz]

That looks great and i agree that the program is the console, not the commands itself.

The more interesting use case for the <samp> tag (for me) is something like this:

<pre>
<code class="language-javascript">console.log(2.3 + 2.4)</code>
<samp>4.699999999999999</samp>
</pre>

[domenic]

Yeah, that makes sense to me. Are you interested in working on a pull request to work on some mashup of my suggestion and your example?

[felixsanz]

I'm going to try, but my english kinda sucks and writing specs is even harder. Give me a few minutes for the PR :)

[felixsanz]

#1368

I hope this looks good.

[felixsanz]

By the way here is how i style samp tags in my blog. Almost no one uses samp tags, but i hope that changes :)