What’s the difference between the “wairole” and “role” attributes?

Question

I have begun doing dojo accessibility testing on a web application and have noticed that elements have both a role and a wairole attribute that seem to be the same value.

After much searching I have been unable to understand the difference between the two. Can anyone explain this?

Answer 1

I'm not sure whether this is a full explanation, but the role attribute in the now abandoned XHTML2 had a much wider use than just the WAI-ARIA roles that are allowed for the role attribute in HTML5.

The was some suggestion ~2006/2007 that to avoid confusion, the attribute in HTML5 should be called wairole, and it may be that Dojo is just trying to cover both bases.

See http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2006-August/007150.html for one place where the wairole name was suggested.

Answer 2

wairole attribute is no longer used. Use role as per WAI-ARIA 1.0 and HTML5