This attribute allows the element it is on to be classified in some way, and is intended only for use with external systems and electronic publishing systems.

Defined in shared attribute group: "Common Optional ID Attributes"

This attribute is not required. It holds one or more name tokens - a space separate list of names, where each name must have an initial character of a letter or '_' or ':', and remaining characters must be letters or digits or '_', ':', '-', or '.').

The DTD contains the following attribute definition (note that embedded links are to definitions within the DTD page of this guide):

                role                     NMTOKENS  #IMPLIED