I am a bit confused between these 2 selectors.
Does the descendent selector:
div p
select all p within a div whether or not it's an immediate descedent? So if the p is inside another div it will still be selected?
Then the child selector:
div > p
Whats the difference? Does a child mean immediate child? Eg.
<div><p>
vs
<div><div><p>
will both be selected, or not?
Just think of what the words "child" and "descendant" mean in English:
My daughter is both my child and my descendant
My granddaughter is not my child, but she is my descendant.
Yes, you are correct. div p will match the following example, but div > p will not.
<div><table><tr><td><p> <!...
The first one is called descendant selector and the second one is called child selector.
Bascailly, "a b" selects all b's inside a, while "a>b" selects b's what are only children to the a, it will not select b what is child of b what is child of a.
This example illustrates the difference:
div span{background:red}
div>span{background:green}
<div><span>abc</span><span>def<span>ghi</span></span></div>
Background color of abc and def will be green, but ghi will have red background color.
IMPORTANT: If you change order of the rules to:
div>span{background:green}
div span{background:red}
All letters will have red background, because descendant selector selects child's too.
In theory:
Child => an immediate descendant of an ancestor (e.g. Joe and his father)
Descendant => any element that is descended from a particular ancestor (e.g. Joe and his great-great-grand-father)
In practice: try this HTML:
<div class="one">
<span>Span 1.
<span>Span 2.</span>
</span>
</div>
<div class="two">
<span>Span 1.
<span>Span 2.</span>
</span>
</div>
with this CSS:
span { color: red; }
div.one span { color: blue; }
div.two > span { color: green; }
http://jsfiddle.net/X343c/1/
Be aware that the child selector is not supported in Internet Explorer 6.
(If you use the selector in a jQuery/Prototype/YUI etc selector rather than in a style sheet it still works though)
div p
Selects all 'p' elements where at least one parent, grandparent etc. is a 'div' element
div > p
It means immediate children
Selects all 'p' elements where the parent is a 'div' element
div > p matches ps that have a div parent - <div><p> in your question
div p matches ps that have a div ancestor (parent, grandparent, great grandparent, etc.) - <div><p> and <div><div><p> in your question
CSS selection and applying style to a particular element can be done through traversing through the dom element
[Example
Example
.a .b .c .d{
background: #bdbdbd;
}
div>div>div>div:last-child{
background: red;
}
<div class='a'>The first paragraph.
<div class='b'>The second paragraph.
<div class='c'>The third paragraph.
<div class='d'>The fourth paragraph.</div>
<div class='e'>The fourth paragraph.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Related
For example:
div > p.some_class {
/* Some declarations */
}
What exactly does the > sign mean?
> is the child combinator, sometimes mistakenly called the direct descendant combinator.1
That means the selector div > p.some_class only matches paragraphs of .some_class that are nested directly inside a div, and not any paragraphs that are nested further within. This implies that every element matching div > p.some_class necessarily also matches div p.some_class, with the descendant combinator (space), so the two are understandably often confused.
An illustration comparing the child combinator with the descendant combinator:
div > p.some_class {
background: yellow;
}
div p.some_class {
color: red;
}
<div>
<p class="some_class">Some text here</p> <!-- [1] div > p.some_class, div p.some_class -->
<blockquote>
<p class="some_class">More text here</p> <!-- [2] div p.some_class -->
</blockquote>
</div>
Which elements are matched by which selectors?
Matched by both div > p.some_class and div p.some_class
This p.some_class is located directly inside the div, hence a parent-child relationship is established between both elements. Since "child" is a type of "descendant", any child element is by definition also a descendant. Therefore, both rules are applied.
Matched by only div p.some_class
This p.some_class is contained by a blockquote within the div, rather than the div itself. Although this p.some_class is a descendant of the div, it's not a child; it's a grandchild. Therefore, only the rule with the descendant combinator in its selector is applied.
1 Many people go further to call it "direct child" or "immediate child", but that's completely unnecessary (and incredibly annoying to me), because a child element is immediate by definition anyway, so they mean the exact same thing. There's no such thing as an "indirect child".
> (greater-than sign) is a CSS Combinator.
A combinator is something that explains the relationship between the selectors.
A CSS selector can contain more than one simple selector. Between the simple selectors, we can include a combinator.
There are four different combinators in CSS3:
descendant selector (space)
child selector (>)
adjacent sibling selector (+)
general sibling selector (~)
Note: < is not valid in CSS selectors.
For example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
div > p {
background-color: yellow;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<p>Paragraph 1 in the div.</p>
<p>Paragraph 2 in the div.</p>
<span><p>Paragraph 3 in the div.</p></span> <!-- not Child but Descendant -->
</div>
<p>Paragraph 4. Not in a div.</p>
<p>Paragraph 5. Not in a div.</p>
</body>
</html>
Output:
More information about CSS Combinators
As others mention, it's a child selector. Here's the appropriate link.
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/selector.html#child-selectors
It matches p elements with class some_class that are directly under a div.
All p tags with class some_class which are direct children of a div tag.
( child selector) was introduced in css2.
div p{ } select all p elements decedent of div elements, whereas div > p selects only child p elements, not grand child, great grand child on so on.
<style>
div p{ color:red } /* match both p*/
div > p{ color:blue } /* match only first p*/
</style>
<div>
<p>para tag, child and decedent of p.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>para inside list. </p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
For more information on CSS Ce[lectors and their use, check my blog,
css selectors and css3 selectors
html
<div>
<p class="some_class">lohrem text (it will be of red color )</p>
<div>
<p class="some_class">lohrem text (it will NOT be of red color)</p>
</div>
<p class="some_class">lohrem text (it will be of red color )</p>
</div>
css
div > p.some_class{
color:red;
}
All the direct children that are <p> with .some_class would get the style applied to them.
The greater sign ( > ) selector in CSS means that the selector on the right is a direct descendant / child of whatever is on the left.
An example:
article > p { }
Means only style a paragraph that comes after an article.
What is the difference between the following two CSS selectors?
From the explanation here, they sound the same?
div p{}
Selects all p elements inside div elements
div > p{}
Selects all p elements where the parent is a div element.
The difference is depth. What the w3schools site doesn't explain very well is that E>F only matches immediate children of E, while E F matches descendants of any depth.
Using your example CSS, consider the following HTML snippet:
<div>
<p id="paragraph1">I'm paragraph 1</p>
<ul>
<li><p id="paragraph2">I'm paragraph 2</p></li>
</ul>
</div>
The first ruleset, div p, will match both p blocks. The second one, div > p, will only match paragraph1.
div p{}
This one applies to all p inside div
div>p{}
This one says p needs to be a direct descendent of div
/*This one applies to all childrens (`span`) inside parent*/
div span {
color: red;
}
/*This one says child (`span`) needs to be a direct descendent of parent*/
div > span {
color: green;
}
<div>
<!--(`div`) does not represent an obstacle in both selectors-->
<div>
<span>I live in Duckburg.</span>
</div>
<ul>
<li>
<span>I live in Duckburg.</span>
</li>
</ul>
<span>I live in Duckburg.</span><br>
<span>I live in Duckburg.</span>
</div>
I have question how work first-child and last-child with elements and classes?
Look on my example
And for it I have some question:
Why this rule not working:
p.test1:first-child{
color: green;
}
How then change color of first element with class test1?
Why this rule working if is similar to example 1:
p.test1:last-child{
color: white;
}
The :first-child CSS pseudo-class represents any element that is the
first child element of its parent.
The :last-child CSS pseudo-class represents any element that is the
last child element of its parent.
References:
http://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/:first-child
http://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/:last-child
1- In your example p.test1 is not a first child element of its parent, so the selector doesn't select any element.
2- .test1:nth-of-type(4) Update, replaced 4 instead of 1, not quiet a solution, Ref:http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#nth-of-type-pseudo
3- Because it is the last child element of its parent.
Note: the parent here in your example is the body tag.
Example in question for future reference:
<p>test</p>
<p>test</p>
<p>test</p>
<p class="test1">test</p>
<p class="test1">test</p>
<p class="test1">test</p>
<p class="test1">test</p>
The first-child/last-child is in relation to the parent element. In your example there is no p.test-element that is the first child of its parent element (The JsFiddle container). Instead the first-child is a plain p-element. If you set the .test-class on the first p-element it turns green.
I have the following set up
.test div:first-child {};
<div class="test" id="one">
<div id="two">
<div id="three">
</div>
</div>
</div>
Somehow div#three inherits the first-child styles, even though it is not the first-child of div.test. Is this intentional by the browsers? Can someone explain this?
While #two is the first child of #one but #three isn't, #three is still the first child of #two. So both inner divs get the styles.
The descendant combinator (the space character) in your selector tells the browser to select any div in any level of nesting from .test, as long as it's contained somewhere within an element with that class. The :first-child pseudo-class says to only select an element if it's the first child of its parent, whatever that parent may be, not just the element represented on the left side of the combinator.
If you only want to target the first child of .test, use the child combinator >:
.test > div:first-child {}
Because > expresses a parent-child relationship, it is safe to imply that the parent concerned by div:first-child is represented by .test.
This is the intended behaviour. You need to write your CSS rule like this:
.test > div:first-child
The > ensures only the first child of the .test element is selected. Without it, any div that is the first child of any node within .test is selected.
This question already has answers here:
What does the ">" (greater-than sign) CSS selector mean?
(8 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I've seen the "greater than" (>) used in CSS code a few times, but I can't work out what it does. What does it do?
> selects immediate children
For example, if you have nested divs like such:
<div class='outer'>
<div class="middle">
<div class="inner">...</div>
</div>
<div class="middle">
<div class="inner">...</div>
</div>
</div>
and you declare a css rule in your stylesheet like such:
.outer > div {
...
}
your rules will apply only to those divs that have a class of "middle" since those divs are direct descendants (immediate children) of elements with class "outer" (unless, of course, you declare other, more specific rules overriding these rules). See fiddle.
div {
border: 1px solid black;
padding: 10px;
}
.outer > div {
border: 1px solid orange;
}
<div class='outer'>
div.outer - This is the parent.
<div class="middle">
div.middle - This is an immediate child of "outer". This will receive the orange border.
<div class="inner">div.inner - This is an immediate child of "middle". This will not receive the orange border.</div>
</div>
<div class="middle">
div.middle - This is an immediate child of "outer". This will receive the orange border.
<div class="inner">div.inner - This is an immediate child of "middle". This will not receive the orange border.</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>Without Words</p>
<div class='outer'>
<div class="middle">
<div class="inner">...</div>
</div>
<div class="middle">
<div class="inner">...</div>
</div>
</div>
Side note
If you, instead, had a space between selectors instead of >, your rules would apply to both of the nested divs. The space is much more commonly used and defines a "descendant selector", which means it looks for any matching element down the tree rather than just immediate children as the > does.
NOTE: The > selector is not supported by IE6. It does work in all other current browsers though, including IE7 and IE8.
If you're looking into less-well-used CSS selectors, you may also want to look at +, ~, and [attr] selectors, all of which can be very useful.
This page has a full list of all available selectors, along with details of their support in various browsers (its mainly IE that has problems), and good examples of their usage.
> selects all direct descendants/children
A space selector will select all deep descendants whereas a greater than > selector will only select all immediate descendants. See fiddle for example.
div { border: 1px solid black; margin-bottom: 10px; }
.a b { color: red; } /* every John is red */
.b > b { color: blue; } /* Only John 3 and John 4 are blue */
<div class="a">
<p><b>John 1</b></p>
<p><b>John 2</b></p>
<b>John 3</b>
<b>John 4</b>
</div>
<div class="b">
<p><b>John 1</b></p>
<p><b>John 2</b></p>
<b>John 3</b>
<b>John 4</b>
</div>
It is the CSS child selector. Example:
div > p selects all paragraphs that are direct children of div.
See this
As others have said, it's a direct child, but it's worth noting that this is different to just leaving a space... a space is for any descendant.
<div>
<span>Some text</span>
</div>
div>span would match this, but it would not match this:
<div>
<p><span>Some text</span></p>
</div>
To match that, you could do div>p>span or div span.
It is a Child Selector.
It matches when an element is the child of some element. It is made up of two or more selectors separated by ">".
Example(s):
The following rule sets the style of all P elements that are children of BODY:
body > P { line-height: 1.3 }
Example(s):
The following example combines descendant selectors and child selectors:
div ol>li p
It matches a P element that is a descendant of an LI; the LI element must be the child of an OL element; the OL element must be a descendant of a DIV. Notice that the optional white space around the ">" combinator has been left out.
It declares parent reference, look at this page for definition:
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/selector.html#child-selectors
It means parent/child
example:
html>body
that's saying that body is a child of html
Check out: Selectors