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httpEquiv property (meta)

Browser support:

Sets or retrieves information for HTTP response message headers. Use it with the content property to create a well-defined meta tag.

Syntax:

object.httpEquiv;

You can find the related objects in the Supported by objects section below.

This property is read/write.

HTML page for this property: http-Equiv

Possible values:

String that sets or retrieves information about the HTTP response message header.

The list below contains only the commonly used values, for a detailed list, please visit the Header Field Definitions (W3C) site.

cache-control

Controls the caching mechanism to use for the page.
Available values:

Public	-	cached in public shared caches
Private	-	cached in private cache
no-Cache	-	not cached
no-Store	-	cached but not archived

content-language

Specifies the primary natural language(s) of the document. Used by search engines to categorize pages by language.

content-type

Specifies the character set for the contents of page. It is recommended to always specify the character set. Use the charset property instead in HTML5.

date

Specifies the date and time when the page was created.

expires

Specifies the date and time when the page will expire.

last-modified

Specifies the last modification date.

location

Redirects the recipient to another location.

page-enter

Specifies the Internet Explorer filter transition effect that is to be performed when the site is loaded.

page-exit

Specifies the Internet Explorer filter transition effect that is to be performed when the site is loaded.

pics-label

Specifies information to content loaders.

pragma

Specifies cache control for older browsers. Same as cache-control.

set-cookie

Creates a cookie with specified name,expires date and value. More than one cookie should be created by meta tags.

site-enter

Specifies the Internet Explorer filter transition effect that is to be performed when the site is loaded.

site-exit

Specifies the Internet Explorer filter transition effect that is to be performed when the site is loaded.

window-target

Specifies the name of the frame where the current document must be loaded.

x-ua-compatible

8

Specifies the Document Compatibility Mode in Internet Explorer from version 8. For further details, please see Defining Document Compatibility (MSDN).

Default: this property has no default value.

Example HTML code 1:

This example illustrates the use of the http-Equiv attribute:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="20" />
    <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Tue, 20 Aug 2020 14:25:27 GMT" />
</head>
<body >
</body>
</html>

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Example HTML code 2:

This example illustrates the use of the http-Equiv property:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="2" />
    <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Tue, 20 Aug 2020 14:25:27 GMT" />
    <script type="text/javascript">
        function GetHttpEquiv () {
            var metaTags = document.getElementsByTagName ("meta");

            for (var i = 0; i < metaTags.length; i++) {
                alert ("The value of the http-equiv property in the " + (i+1) + ". meta tag: " +metaTags[i].httpEquiv);
            }
        }
    </script>
</head>
<body >
    <button onclick="GetHttpEquiv ();">Get HTTP-EQUIV!</button>
</body>
</html>