Using the XHTML closing slash (/) on normal tags?

Question

I was just wondering whether it is acceptable to close a common tag, eg. a <span> which requires no data using the XHTML closing slash to reduce markup.

So for example:

<span id='hello'></span>

could be written as

<span id='hello' />

Answer 1

No you can't do that, span is not self-closing tag. Here are the self closing tags:

<area />
<base />
<basefont />
<br />
<hr />
<input />
<img />
<link />
<meta />

Answer 2

No. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/97522/what-are-all-the-valid-self-closing-tags-in-xhtml-as-implemented-by-the-major-br

Answer 3

There are empty or self-closing tags. Span is not one of them.

http://justinsomnia.org/2005/12/there-are-only-10-legal-xhtml-empty-tags/