Div is not moving nearby divs - css

Question

I have something like this:
<div class="top">top</div>
<div class="container">
<div class="left">left</div>
<div class="right">right</div>
</div>
<div class="bottom">bottom</div>
Relevant code in jsFiddle
As you can see, between top and bottom divs, there is a div container. I want this div container to move bottom dive as much as is needed (and i don't want it to be a fixed value - that means if, lets say left container will get much higher - the bottom div will be pushed down as well.
How can i do that?

Answer 1

This is a simple seeming problem that ends up being kind of tricky. The above suggestion about position:relative vs. position:absolute are a good first step. After that you need to make some room for the set width right div:
.left {
height: 100%;
min-height: 50px;
border:1px dashed red;
padding-right: 50px; <---
}
Then float your right div in the space you made:
.right {
float:right; <---
width: 50px; (This needs to match the padding-right value above.)
text-align: right;
min-height: 50px;
height: 100%;
border:1px dashed blue;
}
Finally, put the right div before the left div in the html:
<div class="top">top</div>
<div class="container">
<div class="right">right</div>
<div class="left">left</div>
</div>
<div class="bottom">bottom</div>
(Tested in Chrome and IE.)
See: Right div fix width, left div extend to max width?
You can check out a fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/x3QfG/1/
Will that work for you?

Answer 2

Right now you're using absolute positions for the left/right div's, so you will always need to know the height in order to position the bottom div correctly. What you want to do is float these instead, then clear the floats in the bottom div. That way the left/right can be as high as their contents, and the bottom div will always appear below.
.bottom {
clear: both;
}
.left {
float: left;
width: 50%;
min-height: 50px;
}
.right {
float: right;
width: 50%;
min-height: 150px;
}
I've modified your jsFiddle accordingly, and made the right div higher to show how the bottom always appears below.

Answer 3

Use floats rather than positioning them absolutely. That will make your architecture very much fluid and flexible.
After you apply necessary float values to your .left and .right, use a clearfix hack to contain your floated elements within the container. Now whenever any of the .left or .right divs increase in height, the bottom div will be pushed down.

Answer 4

Make Container Relative and left and right absolute,and for positioning set width rather than using float.