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Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition
book

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

by Eric A. Meyer
March 2004
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
528 pages
16h 33m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

Appendix B. Selector, Pseudo-Class, and Pseudo-Element Reference

Selectors

Universal Selector

This selector matches any element name in the document’s language. If a rule does not have an explicit selector, then the universal selector is inferred.

Pattern: *

Examples:

* {color: red;}
div * p {color: blue;}

Type Selector

This selector matches the name of an element in the document’s language. Every instance of the element name is matched. (CSS1 referred to these as element selectors.)

Pattern: element1

Examples:

body {background: #FFF;}
p {font-size: 1em;}

Descendant Selector

This allows the author to select an element based on its status as a descendant of another element. The matched element can be a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, etc., of the ancestor element. (CSS1 referred to these as contextual selectors.)

Pattern: element1 element2

Examples:

body h1 {font-size: 200%;}
table tr td div ul li {color: purple;}

Child Selector

This type of selector is used to match an element based on its status as a child of another element. This is more restrictive than a descendant element, since only a child will be matched.

Pattern: element1 > element2

Examples:

div > p {color: cyan;}
ul > li {font-weight: bold;}

Adjacent Sibling Selector

This allows the author to select an element that is the following adjacent sibling of another element. Any text between the two elements is ignored; only elements and their positions in the document tree are considered.

Pattern: element1 + element2

Examples: ...

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Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596005253Catalog PageErrata