What Is "object" Element?

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∟Using "object" Elements for Flash Files

∟What Is "object" Element?

This section describes what is HTML 'object' element - An HTML 4 element that can be used to include a generic object inside a HTML document.

What Is <object> Element? <object> is an HTML 4 element defined in the specification as an all-purpose solution to generic object inclusion in HTML documents. Here is what included in the specification document: "The OBJECT element allows HTML authors to specify everything required by an object for its presentation by a user agent: source code, initial values, and run-time data. In this specification, the term "object" is used to describe the things that people want to place in HTML documents; other commonly used terms for these things are: applets, plug-ins, media handlers, etc."

Here is the DTD (Document Type Definition) of the <object> element:

<!ELEMENT OBJECT - - (PARAM | %flow;)*
 -- generic embedded object -->
<!ATTLIST OBJECT
 %attrs;                         - %coreattrs, %i18n, %events
 declare  (declare)     #IMPLIED - declare but don't instantiate flag 
 classid  %URI;         #IMPLIED - identifies an implementation
 codebase %URI;         #IMPLIED - base URI for classid, data, archive
 data     %URI;         #IMPLIED - reference to object's data
 type     %ContentType; #IMPLIED - content type for data
 codetype %ContentType; #IMPLIED - content type for code
 archive  CDATA         #IMPLIED - space-separated list of URIs
 standby  %Text;        #IMPLIED - message to show while loading
 height   %Length;      #IMPLIED - override height
 width    %Length;      #IMPLIED - override width
 usemap   %URI;         #IMPLIED - use client-side image map
 name     CDATA         #IMPLIED - submit as part of form
 tabindex NUMBER        #IMPLIED - position in tabbing order
 >

Note that:

All attributes of <object> are optional.
<param> sub elements can be used to provide named property values.
Many attributes defined globally can also be used in <object> like "id", "class", "lang", "style", etc.
if "data" is provided, it specifies the data to be used to render this object.
if "type" is provided, it specifies the content type of the data specified in "data".
if "classid" is provided, it specifies the application that can be used to render this object.
If the browser is able to render the <object> element with its attributes, it will ignore the element content.
If the browser is not able to render the <object> element with its attributes, it will try to render the element content.