HTML Guides for whitespace

The id attribute uniquely identifies an element within a document, making it essential for fragment links, JavaScript targeting, CSS styling, and label associations. According to the HTML specification, an id value must contain at least one character and must not contain any ASCII whitespace. This means spaces, tabs, line feeds, carriage returns, and form feeds are all prohibited.

A common mistake is accidentally including a space in an id value, which effectively makes it look like multiple values — similar to how the class attribute works. However, unlike class, the id attribute does not support space-separated values. When a browser encounters an id with a space, behavior becomes unpredictable: some browsers may treat only the first word as the ID, while CSS and JavaScript selectors may fail entirely.

Why this matters

• Broken fragment links: A link like <a href="#my section"> won’t correctly scroll to an element with id="my section" in all browsers.
• JavaScript failures: document.getElementById("my section") may not return the expected element, and document.querySelector("#my section") will throw a syntax error because spaces are not valid in CSS ID selectors without escaping.
• CSS issues: A selector like #my section targets an element with id="my" that has a descendant <section> element — not what you intended.
• Accessibility: Screen readers and assistive technologies rely on id attributes for label associations (e.g., <label for="...">). A broken id can break form accessibility.

Best practices for id values

While the HTML specification technically allows any non-whitespace character in an id, it’s best practice to stick to ASCII letters, digits, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Starting the value with a letter also ensures maximum compatibility with CSS selectors without needing escaping.

Examples

❌ Invalid: id contains a space

<div id="main content">
  <p>Welcome to the page.</p>
</div>

The space between main and content makes this an invalid id.

✅ Fixed: Replace the space with a hyphen

<div id="main-content">
  <p>Welcome to the page.</p>
</div>

✅ Fixed: Replace the space with an underscore

<div id="main_content">
  <p>Welcome to the page.</p>
</div>

✅ Fixed: Use camelCase

<div id="mainContent">
  <p>Welcome to the page.</p>
</div>

❌ Invalid: id with a space breaks label association

<label for="first name">First Name</label>
<input type="text" id="first name">

The for attribute won’t properly associate with the input, breaking accessibility.

✅ Fixed: Remove whitespace from both for and id

<label for="first-name">First Name</label>
<input type="text" id="first-name">

❌ Invalid: Trailing or leading whitespace

Whitespace isn’t always obvious. A trailing space or a copy-paste error can introduce invisible whitespace:

<section id="about ">
  <h2>About Us</h2>
</section>

✅ Fixed: Trim all whitespace

<section id="about">
  <h2>About Us</h2>
</section>

If you’re generating id values dynamically (e.g., from a CMS or database), make sure to trim and sanitize the values by stripping whitespace and replacing spaces with hyphens or underscores before rendering them into HTML.

The <label> element represents a caption for a form control. When you use the for attribute, its value must match the id of the form control it labels. According to the HTML specification, an id attribute value must not contain any whitespace characters — this includes spaces, tabs, line feeds, carriage returns, and form feeds. Since for must reference a valid ID, the same restriction applies to its value.

This error typically occurs when a developer uses a space-separated name (like "user name" or "first name") instead of a single continuous token. Browsers may fail to establish the programmatic association between the label and its form control when the for value contains whitespace. This directly impacts accessibility: screen readers rely on this association to announce the label text when a user focuses on the input. It also breaks the click-to-focus behavior where clicking a label moves focus to its associated control.

To fix this issue, replace any whitespace in the for attribute value with a valid character such as a hyphen (-), underscore (_), or camelCase. Make sure the id on the corresponding form control matches exactly.

Examples

Incorrect — whitespace in the for attribute

<form>
  <label for="user name">Name</label>
  <input type="text" id="user name">
</form>

The value "user name" contains a space, which makes it an invalid ID reference. The validator will report: Bad value “user name” for attribute “for” on element “label”: An ID must not contain whitespace.

Correct — using an underscore instead of a space

<form>
  <label for="user_name">Name</label>
  <input type="text" id="user_name">
</form>

Correct — using a hyphen instead of a space

<form>
  <label for="user-name">Name</label>
  <input type="text" id="user-name">
</form>

Correct — using camelCase

<form>
  <label for="userName">Name</label>
  <input type="text" id="userName">
</form>

Incorrect — leading or trailing whitespace

Whitespace doesn’t have to be in the middle of the value to trigger this error. Leading or trailing spaces also make the ID invalid:

<form>
  <label for=" email">Email</label>
  <input type="text" id=" email">
</form>

This can be easy to miss when values are generated dynamically or copied from another source. Trim the value to fix it:

<form>
  <label for="email">Email</label>
  <input type="text" id="email">
</form>

Alternative — wrapping the input inside the label

If you wrap the form control inside the <label> element, you don’t need the for attribute at all. The association is implicit:

<form>
  <label>
    Name
    <input type="text">
  </label>
</form>

This approach avoids potential ID mismatches entirely, though explicit for/id pairing is often preferred for flexibility in layout and styling.