Node creation using $(html) breaks in IE when tag string is unclosed and attrs are used

[dantman]

​http://jsbin.com/ejote

   Test              ie7   ie8    opera  firefox  midori
<span></span>        Pass  Pass   Pass   Pass     Pass
<span />             Pass  Pass   Pass   Pass     Pass
<span/>              Pass  Pass   Pass   Pass     Pass
<span>               Pass  Pass   Pass   Pass     Pass
<span class=foo />   Pass  Pass   Pass   Pass     Pass
<span class=foo>     Fail  Fail   Pass   Pass     Pass
<span class="foo">   Fail  Fail   Pass   Pass     Pass

<span></span> <span /> <span/> <span> <span class=foo />

All work in ie7, ie8, opera, firefox, and midori.

<span class=foo> <span class="foo">

Fail in ie7 and ie8 while they work in firefox, midori, and opera.

[dmethvin]

What should jQuery do with malformed HTML? Since that is an error case, I don't think you should expect consistent behavior.

[dmethvin]

The current api documentation clarifies that closing tags are required; this is mandated by use of the browser's underlying .innerHTML mechanism so we don't have a lot of control over that.