HTML data-* Attributes
Example
Use the data-* attribute to embed custom data:
<ul>
<li data-animal-type="bird">Owl</li>
<li
data-animal-type="fish">Salmon</li>
<li
data-animal-type="spider">Tarantula</li>
</ul>
Try it yourself »
Definition and Usage
The data-* attributes is used to store custom data private to the page or application.
The data-* attributes gives us the ability to embed custom data attributes on all HTML elements.
The stored (custom) data can then be used in the page's JavaScript to create a more engaging user experience (without any Ajax calls or server-side database queries).
The data-* attributes consist of two parts:
- The attribute name should not contain any uppercase letters, and must be at least one character long after the prefix "data-"
- The attribute value can be any string
Note: Custom attributes prefixed with "data-" will be completely ignored by the user agent.
Browser Support
The numbers in the table specify the first browser version that fully supports the attribute.
| Attribute | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| data-* | 4.0 | 5.5 | 2.0 | 3.1 | 9.6 |
Differences Between HTML 4.01 and HTML5
The data-* attributes are new in HTML5.
Syntax
<element data-*="somevalue">
Attribute Values
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| somevalue | Specifies the value of the attribute (as a string) |
Related Pages
HTML Tutorial: HTML Attributes
HTML DOM Reference: HTML DOM getAttribute() Method
