Specific content breaks editor on IE

Hi,

I have found a specific sequence of tags that breaks the editor in IE with XHTML mode on, causing the following error:

'This name may not contain the '/' character: -->/<--a'

I have reduced the problem source to the minimal case, needless to say the original user reporting the problem had copied and pasted a huge chunk of HTML into the editor from an external source. The core problem seems to be an empty '<a>' tag, but it has to occur in a specific context for the error to occur.

The content that causes this error is:

'<p><a href="http://www.psycle.com"></a></p><p><a name="UK">anchor</a></p>'

After entering the above code in source mode hit the 'source' button six times. After two clicks the content becomes:

'<p><a href="http://www.psycle.com/"/></p><p><a name="UK">anchor</a></p>'

The empty '<a>' tag has been shortened and a '/' has been appended to the URL. After two more clicks it becomes:

'<p><a href="http://www.psycle.com/"><p><a name="UK">anchor</a></p></a></p><p><a name="UK">anchor</a></p>'

The first '<a>' has been extended to wrap the anchor, and an additional copy of the anchor has been inserted. After a final two clicks the error dialog appears.

I realise that invalid HTML may cause unpredictable results, but I would have expected the editor to be robust enough to cope with an empty '<a>' tag.

Should I report this as a bug?