## HTML <script> charset Attribute The `charset` attribute of the ` ``` --- ## Attribute Values | Value | Description | | :--- | :--- | | *charset* | Specifies the character encoding of the external script file.

**Commonly used values:**
• `"UTF-8"` - Unicode character encoding (highly recommended, backward-compatible with ASCII).
• `"ISO-8859-1"` - Standard character encoding for the Latin alphabet. | --- ## Code Example In the example below, we link an external JavaScript file (`myscripts.js`) and explicitly declare its character encoding as `UTF-8`: ```html

Welcome to YouTip

The script below is loaded with a specific character encoding.

``` --- ## Key Considerations & Best Practices ### 1. Only for External Scripts The `charset` attribute is **only** effective when loading external scripts using the `src` attribute. It has no effect on inline script blocks (i.e., ``). ### 2. Modern Web Standards In modern web development, the industry standard is to save both your HTML documents and your JavaScript files using **UTF-8** encoding. If both files are encoded in UTF-8 and your server serves them with the correct HTTP headers, the `charset` attribute is generally redundant but remains useful as an explicit fallback. ### 3. HTML 4.01 vs. HTML5 There are no functional differences in how this attribute is defined between HTML 4.01 and HTML5. However, HTML5 simplifies the overall script declaration by making `type="text/javascript"` optional. --- ## Browser Compatibility The `charset` attribute is widely supported across all major modern and legacy browsers: * Google Chrome * Mozilla Firefox * Microsoft Edge / Internet Explorer * Safari * Opera