CSS first/last child without an element? - css

Question

Can't find the right words to explain so here's a code example:
<button class="btn btn-default">
<i class="glyphicon glyphicon-alert"></i>
<span>button</span>
</button>
<button class="btn btn-default">
<span>button</span>
<i class="glyphicon glyphicon-alert"></i>
</button>
Two buttons, one with a glyphicon at front, one with glyphicon at end
Now let's say we want to add more of a gap between the word and icon:
.btn {
> .glyphicon:first-child {
margin-right: 15px;
}
> .glyphicon:last-child {
margin-left: 15px;
}
}
Works nicely like so: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/wzxRPw
My question... How would this be done without the extra span around the words?
If I remove the span then the glyphicon is the only element, so it's treated as both the first and the last
Edit: Note: My intention in the question is to find out how/if this can be done without adding an extra class, and without the span tag.
I'm aware that maybe the ideal solution is to keep the spans or add a class, I just thought perhaps there was a way to do this in CSS that I had no knowledge of (I'm still learning)

Answer 1

I feel like you're trying to eliminate code that really doesn't need to be eliminated (that's just my opinion). No matter what you do, if you don't wrap the text in a span tag or something of that nature, there's only going to be 1 child element of the actual <button>. Meaning, you won't be able to target anything other than that element without explicitly setting a class or inline styles. The span tags are a great solution, but if you insist on getting rid of them you have a couple of other options (however, I think the span tag is the best):
Create a CSS class that defines margin offset and set that to the according button. So, you'd set a class like .margin-left to one and .margin-right to the other
You can write inline styles for each of the glyphicons.
Like I said above, I think you have the best solution of your options. I don't think there is anything else you can do.

Answer 2

The only reasonable solution without span is to add a class:
<button class="btn btn-default icon-on-left">
<i class="glyphicon glyphicon-alert"></i>
button
</button>
<button class="btn btn-default icon-on-right">
button
<i class="glyphicon glyphicon-alert"></i>
</button>
and style it appropriately. But that creates maintainability issue: while changing content of the button you need to change its class in sync.

Answer 3

I'm not clear what you exactly want to get as the result, still ill tell u some ideas you have to decide whether it suits ur need or not.
If you can you can add between glyphicon and the span
If you remove only span tag then you can set respective margins for span tag instead of glyphicon