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Can pure SVG document specify a favicon.ico?

Can a pure SVG document arriving at a browser, support a favicon.ico specification? My case is machine-generated pure SVG, no <html> or <head> tags available.

Solution

  • Yes, since SVG is XML, you can add the (x)html link element anywhere in the SVG:

    <link xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" />

    There's absolutely no need to wrap this in foreignObject.
    I recommend putting the link element as a child of a defs element though, just to let the SVG engines know that it can be skipped for the actual SVG rendering.

    Do note that this isn't "pure" SVG; it's an xhtml/svg hybrid — but it should work in all the browsers that support SVG.