<meta>

Description:

The <meta> element includes additional HTTP header information about the document. This element is placed in the <head> section of the document.

Syntax:

 
<meta attributes events>

Specifying Name/Value Metadata Pairs

 
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Example</title>
    <meta name="author" content="java2s.com"/>
    <meta name="description" content="A simple example"/>
</head>
<body>
      <a href="http://java2s.com">Visit java2s.com</a>
</body>
</html>

The name attribute specifies which metadata type. The content attribute to provide a value.

The following table lists the predefined metadata types:

Metadata Name	Description
application name	The name of the web application
author	The name of the author
description	A description of the page
generator	The name of the software that generated the HTML
keywords	A set of comma-separated strings that describe the content of the page

 
<meta name="author" content="your Name">
<meta name="description" content="books.">      
<meta name="generator" content="Hand">
<meta name="keywords" content="art, oils, landscape">

Simulate an HTTP Header

The meta element can override the value of one of the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) headers. The http-equiv attribute specifies which header you want to simulate. The content attribute provides the value.

The following code specifies to the refresh(reload) the page every five seconds.

 
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Example</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5" />
</head>
<body>
      <a href="http://java2s.com">Visit java2s.com</a>

</body>
</html>

There are three permitted values for the http-equiv attribute:

Attribute Value	Description
refresh	specifies a period in seconds, after which the current page should reload. You can specify a different URL to be loaded. For example: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; http://www.java2s.com"/>
default-style	specifies the preferred stylesheet. The value of the content attribute must match the title attribute on a script or link element in the same page.
content-type	This is an alternative way of specifying the character encoding of the HTML page. For example: <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html charset=UTF-8"/>

Example:

 
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO646-US">
<meta http-equiv="default-style" content="stylesheet">
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3">
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;url=http://www.java2s.com">

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