+ 12

Why does HTML interpret "elonmusk" as a color?

When using bgcolor in body tag, certain random strings produce colors: <body bgcolor="elonmusk"> Mars is red, as this page's background color </body> What's going on here? https://code.sololearn.com/WGF6pb8dBO2b/?ref=app

html elon-musk

16th Apr 2018, 6:26 PM

vardanator

8 Answers

+ 34

Coloring in HTML basically takes two types of values, RGB(R, G, B - each from 0 to 255) or HEX#(RR, GG, BB each from 0 to F in hexadecimal) which can be represented interchangeably. So, the valid alphabetical HEX values are: A, B, C, D, E, F And keep in mind that any missing or incorrect digit in HEX base is treated as a 0. Let's go back to what we have in this case: "elonmusk" by the rules above the given text will be converted to: e0000000 But our HEX values are 6 digits, so it divides this value into semi-equal pieces: e00, 000, 00 Again, each color part of the HEX takes only two values: so it just trims the extra part, if any: e0, 00, 00 So, we have #e00000. Let's see if I'm right. Take this color #a0e0f0 I'll generate random string based on this letters and the logic above. One example is: aWZepmfgg To HEX: a00e00f00 Trim the extra parts: a0e0f0 P.S.: This is an interesting way to set colors in production code :D

16th Apr 2018, 7:50 PM

Aaron Sarkissian

+ 7

Below SO question has a detailed explanation for that behaviour: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8318911/why-does-html-think-chucknorris-is-a-color

16th Apr 2018, 6:48 PM

Lord Krishna

+ 6

the bgcolor attribute is depreciated.Any random word thats more than 4 digits to my confusion ends up being red.spaces in texts produces color in the blue family and stuff,even i dont get this

16th Apr 2018, 6:40 PM

᠌᠌Brains[Abidemi]

+ 2

my name comes out puke green......LOL

16th Apr 2018, 7:25 PM

Mike Choy

+ 1

its a glitch in Matrix Mr. Anderson :-D

16th Apr 2018, 6:46 PM

ALTernative

+ 1

Aaron Sarkissian ahh! that's the answer I was looking for when I was studying HTML body, thanks ☺️🤚 when I tried this: bgcolor="red+blue"

24th May 2018, 1:41 AM

scientist

If you are putting any word at bgcolor that contains a few hexadecimal character then that character will show you some unexpected color that you never imagine.The logical explanation behind this - during Netscape days, incorrect digits in a color code were considered as 0. So if you apply the same rule to chucknorris Replace all non-hex characters with 0 - you get c00c0000000 Pad out the characters so the total numbers are divisible by 3 - c00c 0000 0000 Split into 3 groups for RGB - c00c, 0000, 0000 Truncate the digits from the right to 2 characters in each color group - c0, 00, 00 (RGB). This gives you the hex color #C00000 which is a shade of red. http://net-informations.com/q/web/color-codes.html

16th Nov 2020, 5:08 AM

malcomjarr

Hi need someone to explain all HTML for me from the beginning to the end

6th Feb 2021, 8:01 PM

Onikosi Abdussomad