About
href stands for hypertext reference.
It forces the user agent (browser) to navigate to the resources by performing an Hypertext fetch
All elements that have an href attributes are called hyperlink and creates a reference relationship.
Metadata
In dublin core metadata, the reference (ie the value of href) is stored in the References filed
Special # value
The empty fragment value #:
- points to the top of the current page
- cause local scrolling to the top of the page but will never navigate (ie perform a http get request).
- is misused by programmers when the href value is determined programmatically in Javascript. See programmatic_href
Programmatic href
If you need to determine the href value programmatically, do it on the server and if you can't.
- unset the href attribute
- and set the cursor style to pointer to still advertise that there is a link. Example
#your-link-id {
"cursor":"pointer"
}