title: Why does "<! --" comment out a style rule, but "<!--" does not?
body: <p>Take it easy on me. I am just learning HTML.</p>
  
  <p>Accroding to <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/syntax.html#comments" rel="noreferrer">http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/syntax.html#comments</a> and many other sites I've seen such as this <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_comment.asp" rel="noreferrer">http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_comment.asp</a></p>
  
  <p>they say an HTML comment  is   <code>&lt;!--  text  --&gt;</code> with no space between <code>!</code> and the next dash.</p>
  
  <p>Yet, I show below that only when I write <code>&lt;! --  test --&gt;</code>  is the stuff inside be actually gets ignored. Notice the space added between  <code>&lt;!</code> and <code>--</code></p>
  
  <p>Here is the HTML code</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML&gt;
  &lt;html&gt;
      &lt;head&gt;
       &lt;style type="text/css"&gt;   
  &lt;!-- td {border: 1px solid gray;} --&gt;
      &lt;/style&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
  
  &lt;table&gt;
    &lt;tr&gt;   &lt;td&gt;      test   &lt;/td&gt;  &lt;/tr&gt;
  &lt;/table&gt;
  
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now before you run it, should the table have border or not? </p>
  
  <p>If the stuff in text/css is really commented out, then the table should not have border, right?  But it does. I tried this on chrome Version 24.0.1312.52 under linux mint 14, and also firefox 18.0</p>
  
  <p>Now when I change the line to</p>
  
  <pre><code> &lt;! -- td {border: 1px solid gray;} --&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Notice the extra space now. Then the table shows up with no border as expected. The same happens when I actually delete the whole line:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML&gt;
  &lt;html&gt;
      &lt;head&gt;
       &lt;style type="text/css"&gt;   
       &lt;/style&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
  
  &lt;table&gt;
    &lt;tr&gt;   &lt;td&gt;      test   &lt;/td&gt;  &lt;/tr&gt;
  &lt;/table&gt;
  
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>question is</strong>:  Is the comment  <code>&lt;!-- text --&gt;</code> or is it <code>&lt;! -- text --&gt;</code> ?</p>