<dir>

Specifies that the following text is a directory list that consists of individual items, each beginning with an <li> tag and none containing more than 20 characters. The browser displays the list in columns.

W3C does not recommend that you use this tag; it may disappear from later HTML specifications. Just use <ul> tags instead.

You must enter the end-tag.

Attributes

compact

Specifies a compact list style. The entries in the list appear closer together.

class=type

Indicates the class to which the tag belongs. You can use the class attribute in a style sheet to create different styles that you want apply to a single HTML tag. For example, you might create three different styles for a <dir> tag. See Using the class attribute as a selector for more details.

dir=ltr|rtr

Specifies the direction of text. This can be left-to-right (ltr) or right-to-left (rtl). For example, English characters are presented left-to-right, Hebrew characters are presented right-to-left.

id=value

Specifies a unique name for the tag. No two tags can have the same id on a single page. The value must begin with a letter followed by any alphanumeric character, a hyphen, an underscore, a colon or a full stop. You use it to reference a unique style for a tag or to manipulate the tag with a script.

lang=language

Specifies which language the <dir> tag uses. You can enter any valid ISO standard language abbreviation, for example, “en” for English, “de” for German and so on. For example, <span lang="es">hola! como esta?</span>.

This attribute helps search engines understand different languages as different languages rather than just misspelled English. It may also help spelling and grammar checkers and allow speech synthesizers to use language-dependent pronunciation rules.

style=style

Specifies style information. See Style sheets for more information.

title=text

For information only. Some browsers display the title when you move the mouse over the tag (like a tool tip).