Directory Lists
The directory list is a specialized form of unordered list. It has been deprecated in the HTML 4 and XHTML standards. We don't recommend that you use it at all. [<ul>, 7.1.1]
The <dir> Tag (Deprecated)
The designers of HTML originally dedicated the <dir> tag for displaying lists of
files. As such, the browser, if it treats <dir> and <ul> differently at all (most don't),
expects the various list elements to be quite short, possibly no
longer than 20 or so characters. Some browsers display the elements in
a multicolumn format and may not use a leading bullet.
As with an unordered list, you define directory list items with
the <li> tag. When used
within a directory list, however, the <li> tag may not contain any block
element, including paragraphs, other lists, preformatted text, or
forms.
The following example puts the directory tag to its traditional task of presenting a list of filenames:
The distribution tape has the following files on it: <dir> <li><code>README</code></li> <li><code>Makefile</code></li> <li><code>main.c</code></li> <li><code>config.h</code></li> <li><code>util.c</code></li> </dir>
Notice that we used the <code> tag to ensure that the filenames would be rendered in an appropriate ...