code (HTML element)

Description

The code element’s purpose is to identify computer code—for example, a snippet of HTML or XML, or some other machine-readable code, be that a server-side language such as PERL, or client-side JavaScript. Most browsers will render code content in a fixed-width font, such as Courier, but this style can be overridden using CSS.

The code element is often used in conjunction with the pre element (denoting preformatted text), which is used to preserve in source markup important whitespace and carriage returns that HTML and XHTML would otherwise ignore.

The example shown above would display in the browser as depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. HTML markup displayed using code

Note that because the example is one for which an HTML snippet is rendered on screen—and is marked up with the code element—the opening and closing p tags are written as <p> and </p> respectively. This ensures that the browser displays them on screen, rather than creating a new paragraph within the document that contains them.

Use This For …

This element is used for code, machine-readable processing instructions, HTML, XML, and markup generally.

Compatibility

The code element has good browser support. All the major browsers render it in a fixed-width display, usually Courier.