Selectors are patterns that match
against elements in a tree, and as such form one of several technologies
that can be used to select nodes in an XML document. Selectors have been
optimized for use with HTML and XML, and are designed to be usable in
performance-critical code.
CSS (Cascading Style
Sheets) is a language for describing the rendering of HTML and XML documents on screen, on
paper, in speech, etc. CSS uses Selectors for binding style properties to
elements in the document.
This document describes the selectors that already exist in CSS1 [CSS1] and CSS2 [CSS21], and further introduces new
selectors for CSS3 and other languages
that may need them.
Selectors define the following function:
expression ∗ element → boolean
That is, given an element and a selector, this specification defines
whether that element matches the selector.
These expressions can also be used, for instance, to select a set of
elements, or a single element from a set of elements, by evaluating the
expression across all the elements in a subtree. STTS (Simple Tree
Transformation Sheets), a language for transforming XML trees, uses this
mechanism. [STTS3]
Status of this document
This section describes the status of this document at the time of
its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list
of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical
report can be found in the W3C
technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document has been reviewed by W3C Members, by software developers, and by other W3C groups and interested parties, and is endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited from another document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.
A Proposed Recommendation is a document that has been widely reviewed
and is ready for implementation. W3C encourages everybody to implement
this specification and return comments as GitHub issues
by 11 October 2018.
All issues and comments are archived,
and there is also a historical
archive.
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connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes
instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual
knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains
Essential
Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance
with section
6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
Selectors Level 1 and Selectors Level 2 are defined as the subsets of
selector functionality defined in the CSS1 and CSS2.1 specifications,
respectively.
1.1. Dependencies
Some features of this specification are specific to CSS, or have
particular limitations or rules specific to CSS. In this specification,
these have been described in terms of CSS2.1. [CSS21]
1.2. Terminology
All of the text of this specification is normative except examples,
notes, and sections explicitly marked as non-normative.
Additional terminology is defined in the Definitions
section of [CSS21]. Examples of
document source code and fragments are given in XML [XML10] or HTML [HTML401][HTML5] syntax.
1.3. Changes from CSS2
This section is non-normative.
The main differences between the selectors in CSS2 and those in
Selectors are:
the list of basic definitions (selector, group of selectors, simple
selector, etc.) has been changed; in particular, what was referred to in
CSS2 as a simple selector is now called a sequence of simple selectors,
and the term "simple selector" is now used for the components of this
sequence
an optional namespace component is now allowed in element type
selectors, the universal selector and attribute selectors
new simple selectors including substring matching attribute selectors,
and new pseudo-classes
new pseudo-elements, and introduction of the "::" convention for
pseudo-elements
the grammar has been rewritten
profiles to be added to specifications integrating Selectors and
defining the set of selectors which is actually supported by each
specification
Selectors are now a CSS3 Module and an independent specification;
other specifications can now refer to this document independently of CSS
the specification now has its own test suite
2. Selectors
This section is non-normative, as it merely summarizes the following
sections.
A Selector represents a structure. This structure can be used as a
condition (e.g. in a CSS rule) that determines which elements a selector
matches in the document tree, or as a flat description of the HTML or XML
fragment corresponding to that structure.
Selectors may range from simple element names to rich contextual
representations.
The following table summarizes the Selector syntax:
All Selectors syntax is case-insensitive within the ASCII range (i.e.
[a-z] and [A-Z] are equivalent), except for parts that are not under the
control of Selectors. The case sensitivity of document language element
names, attribute names, and attribute values in selectors depends on the
document language. For example, in HTML, element names are
case-insensitive, but in XML, they are case-sensitive. Case sensitivity of
namespace prefixes is defined in [CSS3NAMESPACE].
Combinators are: whitespace,
"greater-than sign" (U+003E, >), "plus
sign" (U+002B, +) and "tilde" (U+007E,
~). White space may appear between a combinator and the
simple selectors around it. Only the characters
"space" (U+0020), "tab" (U+0009), "line feed" (U+000A), "carriage return"
(U+000D), and "form feed" (U+000C) can occur in whitespace. Other
space-like characters, such as "em-space" (U+2003) and "ideographic space"
(U+3000), are never part of whitespace.
The elements of a document tree that are represented by a selector are
the subjects of the
selector. A selector consisting of a single sequence of simple
selectors represents any element satisfying its requirements. Prepending
another sequence of simple selectors and a combinator to a sequence
imposes additional matching constraints, so the subjects of a selector are
always a subset of the elements represented by the last sequence of simple
selectors.
An empty selector, containing no sequence of simple selectors and no
pseudo-element, is an invalid selector.
Characters in Selectors can be escaped with a backslash according to the
same escaping
rules as CSS. [CSS21].
Certain selectors support namespace prefixes. The mechanism by
which namespace prefixes are declared should be
specified by the language that uses Selectors. If the language does not
specify a namespace prefix declaration mechanism, then no prefixes are
declared. In CSS, namespace prefixes are declared with the @namespace
rule. [CSS3NAMESPACE]
5. Groups of selectors
A comma-separated list of selectors represents the union of all elements
selected by each of the individual selectors in the list. (A comma is
U+002C.) For example, in CSS when several selectors share the same
declarations, they may be grouped into a comma-separated list. White space
may appear before and/or after the comma.
CSS example:
In this example, we condense three rules with identical declarations
into one. Thus,
Warning: the equivalence is true in this example
because all the selectors are valid selectors. If just one of these
selectors were invalid, the entire group of selectors would be invalid.
This would invalidate the rule for all three heading elements, whereas in
the former case only one of the three individual heading rules would be
invalidated.
because the above selector (h1, h2..foo, h3) is entirely
invalid and the entire style rule is dropped. (When the selectors are not
grouped, only the rule for h2..foo is dropped.)
6. Simple selectors
6.1. Type selector
A type selector is the name of a document
language element type written using the syntax of CSS qualified
names[CSS3NAMESPACE]. A
type selector represents an instance of the element type in the document
tree.
Example:
The following selector represents an h1 element in the
document tree:
h1
6.1.1. Type selectors and
namespaces
Type selectors allow an optional namespace component: a namespace prefix
that has been previously declared may be prepended
to the element name separated by the namespace separator "vertical
bar" (U+007C, |). (See, e.g., [XML-NAMES] for the use of
namespaces in XML.)
The namespace component may be left empty (no prefix before the
namespace separator) to indicate that the selector is only to represent
elements with no namespace.
An asterisk may be used for the namespace prefix, indicating that the
selector represents elements in any namespace (including elements with no
namespace).
Element type selectors that have no namespace component (no namespace
separator) represent elements without regard to the element's namespace
(equivalent to "*|") unless a default namespace has been declared for namespaced selectors (e.g. in CSS, in the
style sheet). If a default namespace has been declared, such selectors
will represent only elements in the default namespace.
A type selector containing a namespace prefix that has not been
previously declared for namespaced selectors is an
invalid selector.
In a namespace-aware client, the name part of element type selectors
(the part after the namespace separator, if it is present) will only match
against the local part of
the element's qualified
name.
In summary:
ns|E
elements with name E in namespace ns
*|E
elements with name E in any namespace, including those without a
namespace
|E
elements with name E without a namespace
E
if no default namespace has been declared for
selectors, this is equivalent to *|E. Otherwise it is equivalent to ns|E
where ns is the default namespace.
CSS examples:
@namespace foo url(http://www.example.com);
foo|h1 { color: blue } /* first rule */
foo|* { color: yellow } /* second rule */
|h1 { color: red } /* ...*/
*|h1 { color: green }
h1 { color: green }
The first rule (not counting the @namespace at-rule) will
match only h1 elements in the "http://www.example.com"
namespace.
The second rule will match all elements in the "http://www.example.com"
namespace.
The third rule will match only h1 elements with no
namespace.
The fourth rule will match h1 elements in any namespace
(including those without any namespace).
The last rule is equivalent to the fourth rule because no default
namespace has been defined.
6.2. Universal selector
The universal selector, written as a
CSS qualified
name[CSS3NAMESPACE]
with an asterisk (* U+002A) as the local name, represents the qualified name of
any element type. It represents any single element in the document tree in
any namespace (including those without a namespace) if no default
namespace has been specified for selectors. If a default namespace has
been specified, see Universal selector and
Namespaces below.
If a universal selector represented by * (i.e. without a
namespace prefix) is not the only component of a sequence of simple selectors selectors or is
immediately followed by a pseudo-element,
then the * may be omitted and the universal selector's
presence implied.
Examples:
*[hreflang|=en] and [hreflang|=en] are
equivalent,
*.warning and .warning are equivalent,
*#myid and #myid are equivalent.
Note: it is recommended that the
* not be omitted, because it decreases the potential
confusion between, for example, div
:first-child and div:first-child. Here, div *:first-child is more readable.
6.2.1. Universal selector and
namespaces
The universal selector allows an optional namespace component. It is
used as follows:
ns|*
all elements in namespace ns
*|*
all elements
|*
all elements without a namespace
*
if no default namespace has been specified, this is equivalent to *|*.
Otherwise it is equivalent to ns|* where ns is the default namespace.
A universal selector containing a namespace prefix that has not been
previously declared is an invalid selector.
6.3. Attribute
selectors
Selectors allow the representation of an element’s attributes. When a
selector is used as an expression to match against an element, attribute
selectors must be considered to match an element if that element has an
attribute that matches the attribute represented by the attribute
selector.
6.3.1. Attribute
presence and value selectors
CSS2 introduced four attribute selectors:
[att]
Represents an element with the att attribute, whatever
the value of the attribute.
[att=val]
Represents an element with the att attribute whose value
is exactly "val".
[att~=val]
Represents an element with the att attribute whose value
is a whitespace-separated list of words, one of
which is exactly "val". If "val" contains whitespace, it will never
represent anything (since the words are separated by spaces).
Also if "val" is the empty string, it will never represent anything.
[att|=val]
Represents an element with the att attribute, its value
either being exactly "val" or beginning with "val" immediately followed
by "-" (U+002D). This is primarily intended to allow language subcode
matches (e.g., the hreflang attribute on the a
element in HTML) as described in BCP 47 ([BCP47]) or its successor. For
lang (or xml:lang) language subcode matching,
please see the :lang
pseudo-class.
Attribute values must be CSS identifiers
or strings.
[CSS21] The case-sensitivity of
attribute names and values in selectors depends on the document language.
Examples:
The following attribute selector represents an h1 element
that carries the title attribute, whatever its value:
h1[title]
In the following example, the selector represents a span
element whose class attribute has exactly the value
"example":
span[class="example"]
Multiple attribute selectors can be used to represent several
attributes of an element, or several conditions on the same attribute.
Here, the selector represents a span element whose
hello attribute has exactly the value "Cleveland" and whose
goodbye attribute has exactly the value "Columbus":
span[hello="Cleveland"][goodbye="Columbus"]
The following CSS rules illustrate the differences between "=" and
"~=". The first selector would match, for example, an a
element with the value "copyright copyleft copyeditor" on a
rel attribute. The second selector would only match an
a element with an href attribute having the
exact value "http://www.w3.org/".
The following selector represents an a element whose
hreflang attribute is exactly "fr".
a[hreflang=fr]
The following selector represents an a element for which
the value of the hreflang attribute begins with "en",
including "en", "en-US", and "en-scouse":
a[hreflang|="en"]
The following selectors represent a DIALOGUE element
whenever it has one of two different values for an attribute
character:
Three additional attribute selectors are provided for matching
substrings in the value of an attribute:
[att^=val]
Represents an element with the att attribute whose value
begins with the prefix "val". If "val" is the empty string then the
selector does not represent anything.
[att$=val]
Represents an element with the att attribute whose value
ends with the suffix "val". If "val" is the empty string then the
selector does not represent anything.
[att*=val]
Represents an element with the att attribute whose value
contains at least one instance of the substring "val". If "val" is the
empty string then the selector does not represent anything.
Attribute values must be CSS identifiers
or strings.
[CSS21] The case-sensitivity of
attribute names in selectors depends on the document language.
Examples:
The following selector represents an HTML object,
referencing an image:
object[type^="image/"]
The following selector represents an HTML anchor a with an
href attribute whose value ends with ".html".
a[href$=".html"]
The following selector represents an HTML paragraph with a
title attribute whose value contains the substring "hello"
p[title*="hello"]
6.3.3. Attribute selectors and
namespaces
The attribute name in an attribute selector is given as a CSS qualified
name: a namespace prefix that has been previously declared may be prepended to the attribute name
separated by the namespace separator "vertical bar"
(|). In keeping with the Namespaces in the XML
recommendation, default namespaces do not apply to attributes, therefore
attribute selectors without a namespace component apply only to attributes
that have no namespace (equivalent to "|attr"). An asterisk
may be used for the namespace prefix indicating that the selector is to
match all attribute names without regard to the attribute's namespace.
An attribute selector with an attribute name containing a namespace
prefix that has not been previously declared is an
invalid selector.
CSS examples:
@namespace foo "http://www.example.com";
[foo|att=val] { color: blue }
[*|att] { color: yellow }
[|att] { color: green }
[att] { color: green }
The first rule will match only elements with the attribute
att in the "http://www.example.com" namespace with the value
"val".
The second rule will match only elements with the attribute
att regardless of the namespace of the attribute (including
no namespace).
The last two rules are equivalent and will match only elements with the
attribute att where the attribute is not in a namespace.
6.3.4. Default attribute values
in DTDs
Attribute selectors represent attribute values in the document tree. How
that document tree is constructed is outside the scope of Selectors. In
some document formats default attribute values can be defined in a DTD or
elsewhere, but these can only be selected by attribute selectors if they
appear in the document tree. Selectors should be designed so that they
work whether or not the default values are included in the document tree.
For example, a XML UA may, but is not required to read an
"external subset" of the DTD but is required to look for default
attribute values in the document's "internal subset." (See, e.g., [XML10] for definitions of these
subsets.) Depending on the UA, a default attribute value defined in the
external subset of the DTD might or might not appear in the document tree.
A UA that recognizes an XML namespace may, but is not required to use
its knowledge of that namespace to treat default attribute values as if
they were present in the document. (For example, an XHTML UA is not
required to use its built-in knowledge of the XHTML DTD. See, e.g., [XML-NAMES] for details on
namespaces in XML 1.0.)
Note: Typically, implementations choose to
ignore external subsets. This corresponds to the behaviour of
non-validating processors as defined by the XML specification.
Example:
Consider an element EXAMPLE with an attribute
radix that has a default value of "decimal".
The DTD fragment might be
<!ATTLIST EXAMPLE radix (decimal,octal) "decimal">
the first rule might not match elements whose radix
attribute is set by default, i.e. not set explicitly. To catch all cases,
the attribute selector for the default value must be dropped:
EXAMPLE { /*... default property settings ...*/ }
EXAMPLE[radix=octal] { /*... other settings...*/ }
Here, because the selector EXAMPLE[radix=octal] is more
specific than the type selector alone, the style declarations in the
second rule will override those in the first for elements that have a
radix attribute value of "octal". Care has to
be taken that all property declarations that are to apply only to the
default case are overridden in the non-default cases' style rules.
6.4. Class selectors
Working with HTML, authors may use the "period" notation (also known as
"full stop", U+002E, .) as an alternative to the
~= notation when representing the class
attribute. Thus, for HTML, div.value and
div[class~=value] have the same meaning. The attribute value
must immediately follow the full stop (.).
UAs may apply selectors using the period (.) notation in XML documents
if the UA has namespace-specific knowledge that allows it to determine
which attribute is the "class" attribute for the respective namespace. One
such example of namespace-specific knowledge is the prose in the
specification for a particular namespace (e.g. SVG 1.1 [SVG11] describes the SVG
class attribute and how a UA should interpret it, and
similarly MathML [MATHML3]
describes the MathML
class attribute.)
CSS examples:
We can assign style information to all elements with
class~="pastoral" as follows:
*.pastoral { color: green } /* all elements with class~=pastoral */
or just
.pastoral { color: green } /* all elements with class~=pastoral */
The following assigns style only to H1 elements with
class~="pastoral":
H1.pastoral { color: green } /* H1 elements with class~=pastoral */
Given these rules, the first H1 instance below would not
have green text, while the second would:
The following rule matches any P element whose
class attribute has been assigned a list of whitespace-separated values that includes both
pastoral and marine:
p.pastoral.marine { color: green }
This rule matches when class="pastoral blue aqua marine"
but does not match for class="pastoral blue".
Note: Because CSS gives considerable power
to the "class" attribute, authors could conceivably design their own
"document language" based on elements with almost no associated
presentation (such as DIV and SPAN in HTML) and
assigning style information through the "class" attribute. Authors should
avoid this practice since the structural elements of a document language
often have recognized and accepted meanings and author-defined classes may
not.
Note: If an element has multiple class
attributes, their values must be concatenated with spaces between the
values before searching for the class. As of this time the working group
is not aware of any manner in which this situation can be reached,
however, so this behavior is explicitly non-normative in this
specification.
6.5. ID selectors
Document languages may contain attributes that are declared to be of
type ID. What makes attributes of type ID special is that no two such
attributes can have the same value in a conformant document, regardless of
the type of the elements that carry them; whatever the document language,
an ID typed attribute can be used to uniquely identify its element. In
HTML all ID attributes are named "id"; XML applications may name ID
attributes differently, but the same restriction applies.
An ID-typed attribute of a document language allows authors to assign an
identifier to one element instance in the document tree. An ID selector
contains a "number sign" (U+0023, #) immediately
followed by the ID value, which must be an CSS identifiers.
An ID selector represents an element instance that has an identifier that
matches the identifier in the ID selector.
Selectors does not specify how a UA knows the ID-typed attribute of an
element. The UA may, e.g., read a document's DTD, have the information
hard-coded or ask the user.
Examples:
The following ID selector represents an h1 element whose
ID-typed attribute has the value "chapter1":
h1#chapter1
The following ID selector represents any element whose ID-typed
attribute has the value "chapter1":
#chapter1
The following selector represents any element whose ID-typed attribute
has the value "z98y".
*#z98y
Note: In XML 1.0 [XML10], the information about which
attribute contains an element's IDs is contained in a DTD or a schema.
When parsing XML, UAs do not always read the DTD, and thus may not know
what the ID of an element is (though a UA may have namespace-specific
knowledge that allows it to determine which attribute is the ID attribute
for that namespace). If a style sheet author knows or suspects that a UA
may not know what the ID of an element is, he should use normal attribute
selectors instead: [name=p371] instead of #p371.
If an element has multiple ID attributes, all of them must be treated as
IDs for that element for the purposes of the ID selector. Such a situation
could be reached using mixtures of xml:id, DOM, XML DTDs, and
namespace-specific knowledge.
6.6. Pseudo-classes
The pseudo-class concept is introduced to permit selection based on
information that lies outside of the document tree or that cannot be
expressed using the other simple selectors.
A pseudo-class always consists of a "colon" (:)
followed by the name of the pseudo-class and optionally by a value between
parentheses.
Pseudo-classes are allowed in all sequences of simple selectors
contained in a selector. Pseudo-classes are allowed anywhere in sequences
of simple selectors, after the leading type selector or universal selector
(possibly omitted). Pseudo-class names are case-insensitive. Some
pseudo-classes are mutually exclusive, while others can be applied
simultaneously to the same element. Pseudo-classes may be dynamic, in the
sense that an element may acquire or lose a pseudo-class while a user
interacts with the document.
6.6.1. Dynamic
pseudo-classes
Dynamic pseudo-classes classify elements on characteristics other than
their name, attributes, or content, in principle characteristics that
cannot be deduced from the document tree.
Dynamic pseudo-classes do not appear in the document source or document
tree.
User agents commonly display unvisited links differently from previously
visited ones. Selectors provides the pseudo-classes :link and
:visited to distinguish them:
The :link pseudo-class applies to
links that have not yet been visited.
The :visited pseudo-class applies
once the link has been visited by the user.
After some amount of time, user agents may choose to return a visited
link to the (unvisited) ‘:link’ state.
The two states are mutually exclusive.
Example:
The following selector represents links carrying class
external and already visited:
a.external:visited
Note: It is possible for style sheet authors
to abuse the :link and :visited pseudo-classes to determine which sites a
user has visited without the user's consent.
UAs may therefore treat all links as unvisited links, or implement other
measures to preserve the user's privacy while rendering visited and
unvisited links differently.
Interactive user agents sometimes change the rendering in response to
user actions. Selectors provides three pseudo-classes for the selection of
an element the user is acting on.
The :hover pseudo-class applies while the user designates
an element with a pointing device, but does not necessarily activate it.
For example, a visual user agent could apply this pseudo-class when the
cursor (mouse pointer) hovers over a box generated by the element. User
agents that do not support interactive
media do not have to support this pseudo-class. Some conforming user
agents that support interactive
media may not be able to support this pseudo-class (e.g., a pen
device that does not detect hovering).
The :active pseudo-class applies while an element is
being activated by the user. For example, between the times the user
presses the mouse button and releases it. On systems with more than one
mouse button, :active applies only
to the primary or primary activation button (typically the "left" mouse
button), and any aliases thereof.
The :focus pseudo-class applies while an element has the
focus (accepts keyboard or mouse events, or other forms of input).
There may be document language or implementation specific limits on
which elements can become :active
or acquire :focus.
These pseudo-classes are not mutually exclusive. An element may match
several pseudo-classes at the same time.
Selectors doesn't define if the parent of an element that is ‘:active’ or ‘:hover’ is also in that
state.
Note: If the ‘:hover’ state applies to an element because its
child is designated by a pointing device, then it's possible for ‘:hover’ to apply to an
element that is not underneath the pointing device.
Examples:
a:link /* unvisited links */
a:visited /* visited links */
a:hover /* user hovers */
a:active /* active links */
An example of combining dynamic pseudo-classes:
a:focus
a:focus:hover
The last selector matches a elements that are in the
pseudo-class :focus and in the pseudo-class :hover.
Some URIs refer to a location within a resource. This kind of URI ends
with a "number sign" (#) followed by an anchor identifier
(called the fragment identifier).
URIs with fragment identifiers link to a certain element within the
document, known as the target element. For instance, here is a URI
pointing to an anchor named section_2 in an HTML document:
http://example.com/html/top.html#section_2
A target element can be represented by the :target pseudo-class. If the
document’s URI has no fragment identifier, then the document has no
target element.
Example:
p.note:target
This selector represents a p element of class
note that is the target element of the referring URI.
CSS example:
Here, the :target pseudo-class
is used to make the target element red and place an image before it, if
there is one:
*:target { color : red }
*:target::before { content : url(target.png) }
6.6.3. The language
pseudo-class :lang
If the document language specifies how the human language of an element
is determined, it is possible to write selectors that represent an element
based on its language. For example, in HTML [HTML401], the language is
determined by a combination of the lang attribute and
possibly information from the meta elements or the protocol
(such as HTTP headers). XML uses an attribute called
xml:lang, and there may be other document language-specific
methods for determining the language.
The pseudo-class :lang(C) represents an element that is
in language C. Whether an element is represented by a :lang()
selector is based solely on the element's language value (normalized to
BCP 47 syntax if necessary) being equal to the identifier C, or beginning
with the identifier C immediately followed by "-" (U+002D). The matching
of C against the element's language value is performed case-insensitively
within the ASCII range. The identifier C does not have to be a valid
language name.
C must be a valid CSS identifier[CSS21] and must not be empty.
(Otherwise, the selector is invalid.)
Note: It is recommended that documents and
protocols indicate language using codes from BCP 47 [BCP47] or its successor, and by
means of "xml:lang" attributes in the case of XML-based documents [XML10]. See "FAQ:
Two-letter or three-letter language codes."
Examples:
The two following selectors represent an HTML document that is in
Belgian French or German. The two next selectors represent q
quotations in an arbitrary element in Belgian French or German.
The difference between :lang(C) and
the ‘|=’ operator is that the ‘|=’ operator only performs a comparison against a given
attribute on the element, while the :lang(C) pseudo-class uses the UAs
knowledge of the document's semantics to perform the comparison.
In this HTML example, only the BODY matches [lang|=fr]
(because it has a LANG attribute) but both the BODY and the P match
:lang(fr) (because both are in French). The P does not match
the [lang|=fr] because it does not have a LANG attribute.
<body lang=fr>
<p>Je suis français.</p>
</body>
6.6.4. The UI element states
pseudo-classes
6.6.4.1. The :enabled and
:disabled pseudo-classes
The :enabled pseudo-class represents user interface
elements that are in an enabled state; such elements have a corresponding
disabled state.
Conversely, the :disabled pseudo-class represents user interface
elements that are in a disabled state; such elements have a corresponding
enabled state.
What constitutes an enabled state, a disabled state, and a user
interface element is language-dependent. In a typical document most
elements will be neither :enabled
nor :disabled.
Note: CSS properties that might affect a
user’s ability to interact with a given user interface element do not
affect whether it matches :enabled
or :disabled; e.g., the
display and visibility properties have no effect
on the enabled/disabled state of an element.
6.6.4.2. The :checked pseudo-class
Radio and checkbox elements can be toggled by the user. Some menu items
are "checked" when the user selects them. When such elements are toggled
"on" the :checked pseudo-class applies. While the :checked pseudo-class is dynamic in
nature, and can altered by user action, since it can also be based on the
presence of semantic attributes in the document, it applies to all media.
For example, the :checked
pseudo-class initially applies to such elements that have the HTML4
selected and checked
attributes as described in Section
17.2.1 of HTML4, but of course the user can toggle "off" such elements
in which case the :checked
pseudo-class would no longer apply.
6.6.4.3. The :indeterminate
pseudo-class
Note: Radio and checkbox elements can be toggled by
the user, but are sometimes in an indeterminate state, neither checked
nor unchecked. This can be due to an element attribute, or DOM
manipulation.
A future version of this specification may introduce an
:indeterminate pseudo-class that applies to such elements.
6.6.5. Structural
pseudo-classes
Selectors introduces the concept of structural pseudo-classes to permit
selection based on extra information that lies in the document tree but
cannot be represented by other simple selectors or combinators.
Standalone text and other non-element nodes are not counted when
calculating the position of an element in its list of siblings; index
numbering starts at 1.
6.6.5.1. :root pseudo-class
The :root pseudo-class represents an element that is the
root of the document. In HTML 4, this is always the HTML
element.
6.6.5.2. :nth-child()
pseudo-class
The :nth-child(an+b)
pseudo-class notation represents an element that has
an+b-1 siblings before it in the document tree,
for any positive integer or zero value of n. It is not
required to have a parent. For values of a and b
greater than zero, this effectively divides the element's children into
groups of a elements (the last group taking the remainder), and
selecting the bth element of each group. For example, this
allows the selectors to address every other row in a table, and could be
used to alternate the color of paragraph text in a cycle of four. The
a and b values must be integers (positive, negative,
or zero). The index of the first child of an element is 1.
In addition to this, :nth-child() can take ‘odd’ and ‘even’ as arguments instead. ‘odd’ has the same signification as
2n+1, and ‘even’ has
the same signification as 2n.
The argument to :nth-child() must match the grammar below,
where INTEGER matches the token [0-9]+ and the
rest of the tokenization is given by the Lexical
scanner in section 10.2:
tr:nth-child(2n+1) /* represents every odd row of an HTML table */
tr:nth-child(odd) /* same */
tr:nth-child(2n+0) /* represents every even row of an HTML table */
tr:nth-child(even) /* same */
/* Alternate paragraph colours in CSS */
p:nth-child(4n+1) { color: navy; }
p:nth-child(4n+2) { color: green; }
p:nth-child(4n+3) { color: maroon; }
p:nth-child(4n+4) { color: purple; }
When the value b is preceded by a negative sign, the "+"
character in the expression must be removed (it is effectively replaced by
the "-" character indicating the negative value of b).
Examples:
:nth-child(10n-1) /* represents the 9th, 19th, 29th, etc, element */
:nth-child(10n+9) /* Same */
:nth-child(10n+-1) /* Syntactically invalid, and would be ignored */
When a=0, the an part need not be
included (unless the b part is already omitted). When
an is not included and b is
non-negative, the + sign before b (when allowed)
may also be omitted. In this case the syntax simplifies to
:nth-child(b).
Examples:
foo:nth-child(0n+5) /* represents an element foo that is the 5th child
of its parent element */
foo:nth-child(5) /* same */
When a=1, or a=-1, the 1 may be
omitted from the rule.
Examples:
The following selectors are therefore equivalent:
bar:nth-child(1n+0) /* represents all bar elements, specificity (0,1,1) */
bar:nth-child(n+0) /* same */
bar:nth-child(n) /* same */
bar /* same but lower specificity (0,0,1) */
If b=0, then every ath element is picked. In such
a case, the +b (or -b) part may be omitted unless
the a part is already omitted.
Examples:
tr:nth-child(2n+0) /* represents every even row of an HTML table */
tr:nth-child(2n) /* same */
Whitespace is permitted after the "(", before the ")", and on either
side of the "+" or "-" that separates the an and
b parts when both are present.
If both a and b are equal to zero, the
pseudo-class represents no element in the document tree.
The value a can be negative, but only the positive values of
an+b, for n≥0, may
represent an element in the document tree.
Example:
html|tr:nth-child(-n+6) /* represents the 6 first rows of XHTML tables */
6.6.5.3.
:nth-last-child() pseudo-class
The :nth-last-child(an+b)
pseudo-class notation represents an element that has
an+b-1 siblings after it in the document tree, for
any positive integer or zero value of n. It is not required
to have a parent. See :nth-child() pseudo-class for
the syntax of its argument. It also accepts the ‘even’ and ‘odd’ values as arguments.
Examples:
tr:nth-last-child(-n+2) /* represents the two last rows of an HTML table */
foo:nth-last-child(odd) /* represents all odd foo elements in their parent element,
counting from the last one */
6.6.5.4. :nth-of-type()
pseudo-class
The :nth-of-type(an+b)
pseudo-class notation represents an element that has
an+b-1 siblings with the same expanded
element name before it in the
document tree, for any zero or positive integer value of n.
It is not required to have a parent. See :nth-child() pseudo-class for
the syntax of its argument. It also accepts the ‘even’ and ‘odd’ values.
CSS example:
This allows an author to alternate the position of floated images:
The :nth-last-of-type(an+b)
pseudo-class notation represents an element that has
an+b-1 siblings with the same expanded
element name after it in the
document tree, for any zero or positive integer value of n.
It is not required to have a parent. See :nth-child() pseudo-class for
the syntax of its argument. It also accepts the ‘even’ and ‘odd’ values.
Example:
To represent all h2 children of an XHTML body
except the first and last, one could use the following selector:
body > h2:nth-of-type(n+2):nth-last-of-type(n+2)
In this case, one could also use :not(), although the
selector ends up being just as long:
body > h2:not(:first-of-type):not(:last-of-type)
6.6.5.6. :first-child
pseudo-class
Same as :nth-child(1). The :first-child pseudo-class
represents an element that is first in a list of siblings.
Examples:
The following selector represents a p element that is the
first child of a div element:
div > p:first-child
This selector can represent the p inside the
div of the following fragment:
<p> The last P before the note.</p>
<div class="note">
<p> The first P inside the note.</p>
</div>
but cannot represent the second p in the following fragment:
<p> The last P before the note.</p>
<div class="note">
<h2> Note </h2>
<p> The first P inside the note.</p>
</div>
The following two selectors are usually equivalent:
* > a:first-child /* a is first child of any element */
a:first-child /* Same (assuming a is not the root element) */
6.6.5.7. :last-child
pseudo-class
Same as :nth-last-child(1). The :last-child pseudo-class
represents an element that is last in a list of siblings.
Example:
The following selector represents a list item li that is
the last child of an ordered list ol.
ol > li:last-child
6.6.5.8.
:first-of-type pseudo-class
Same as :nth-of-type(1). The :first-of-type
pseudo-class represents an element that is the first sibling of its type.
Example:
The following selector represents a definition title dt
inside a definition list dl, this dt being the
first of its type in the list of children of its parent element.
dl dt:first-of-type
It is a valid description for the first two dt elements in
the following example but not for the third one:
Same as :nth-last-of-type(1). The :last-of-type pseudo-class represents an element
that is the last sibling of its type.
Example:
The following selector represents the last data cell td of
a table row tr.
tr > td:last-of-type
6.6.5.10. :only-child
pseudo-class
The :only-child pseudo-class represents an element
that has no siblings. Same as :first-child:last-child or
:nth-child(1):nth-last-child(1), but with a lower
specificity.
6.6.5.11. :only-of-type
pseudo-class
The :only-of-type pseudo-class represents an element
that has no siblings with the same expanded element name. Same as
:first-of-type:last-of-type or
:nth-of-type(1):nth-last-of-type(1), but with a lower
specificity.
6.6.5.12. :empty pseudo-class
The :empty pseudo-class represents an element that has no
children at all. In terms of the document tree, only element nodes and
content nodes (such as DOM [DOM-LEVEL-3-CORE]
text nodes, CDATA nodes, and entity references) whose data has a non-zero
length must be considered as affecting emptiness; comments, processing
instructions, and other nodes must not affect whether an element is
considered empty or not.
Examples:
p:empty is a valid representation of the following
fragment:
<p></p>
foo:empty is not a valid representation for the following
fragments:
<foo>bar</foo>
<foo><bar>bla</bar></foo>
<foo>this is not <bar>:empty</bar></foo>
6.6.6. Blank
This section intentionally left blank. (This section previously defined
a :contains() pseudo-class.)
6.6.7. The negation pseudo-class
The negation pseudo-class, :not(X), is a functional notation taking a simple selector (excluding the negation
pseudo-class itself) as an argument. It represents an element that is not
represented by its argument.
Negations may not be nested; :not(:not(...)) is invalid.
Note also that since pseudo-elements are not simple selectors, they are
not a valid argument to :not().
Examples:
The following selector matches all button elements in an
HTML document that are not disabled.
button:not([DISABLED])
The following selector represents all but FOO elements.
*:not(FOO)
The following group of selectors represents all HTML elements except
links.
html|*:not(:link):not(:visited)
Default namespace declarations do not affect the argument of the
negation pseudo-class unless the argument is a universal selector or a
type selector.
Examples:
Assuming that the default namespace is bound to "http://example.com/",
the following selector represents all elements that are not in that
namespace:
*|*:not(*)
The following selector matches any element that is not being hovered,
regardless of its namespace. In particular, it is not limited to only
matching elements in the default namespace that are not being hovered,
and elements not in the default namespace don't match the rule when they
are being hovered.
*|*:not(:hover)
Note: the :not() pseudo allows useless
selectors to be written. For instance :not(*|*), which
represents no element at all, or foo:not(bar), which is
equivalent to foo but with a higher specificity.
7. Pseudo-elements
Pseudo-elements create abstractions about the document tree beyond those
specified by the document language. For instance, document languages do
not offer mechanisms to access the first letter or first line of an
element’s content. Pseudo-elements allow authors to refer to this
otherwise inaccessible information. Pseudo-elements may also provide
authors a way to refer to content that does not exist in the source
document (e.g., the ::before and ::after pseudo-elements give access to
generated content).
A pseudo-element is made of two colons (::) followed by the
name of the pseudo-element.
This :: notation is introduced by the current document in
order to establish a discrimination between pseudo-classes and
pseudo-elements. For compatibility with existing style sheets, user agents
must also accept the previous one-colon notation for pseudo-elements
introduced in CSS levels 1 and 2 (namely, :first-line, :first-letter, :before and :after). This compatibility is not
allowed for the new pseudo-elements introduced in this specification.
Only one pseudo-element may appear per selector, and if present it must
appear after the sequence of simple selectors that represents the subjects of the selector. Note: A future version of this specification
may allow multiple pseudo-elements per selector.
7.1. The ::first-line
pseudo-element
The ::first-line pseudo-element describes the contents
of the first formatted line of an element.
CSS example:
p::first-line { text-transform: uppercase }
The above rule means "change the letters of the first line of every
p element to uppercase".
The selector p::first-line does not match any real
document element. It does match a pseudo-element that conforming user
agents will insert at the beginning of every p element.
Note that the length of the first line depends on a number of factors,
including the width of the page, the font size, etc. Thus, an ordinary
HTML paragraph such as:
<P>This is a somewhat long HTML
paragraph that will be broken into several
lines. The first line will be identified
by a fictional tag sequence. The other lines
will be treated as ordinary lines in the
paragraph.</P>
the lines of which happen to be broken as follows:
THIS IS A SOMEWHAT LONG HTML PARAGRAPH THAT
will be broken into several lines. The first
line will be identified by a fictional tag
sequence. The other lines will be treated as
ordinary lines in the paragraph.
This paragraph might be "rewritten" by user agents to include the
fictional tag sequence for ::first-line. This fictional tag
sequence helps to show how properties are inherited.
<P><P::first-line> This is a somewhat long HTML
paragraph that </P::first-line> will be broken into several
lines. The first line will be identified
by a fictional tag sequence. The other lines
will be treated as ordinary lines in the
paragraph.</P>
If a pseudo-element breaks up a real element, the desired effect can
often be described by a fictional tag sequence that closes and then
re-opens the element. Thus, if we mark up the previous paragraph with a
span element:
<P><SPAN class="test"> This is a somewhat long HTML
paragraph that will be broken into several
lines.</SPAN> The first line will be identified
by a fictional tag sequence. The other lines
will be treated as ordinary lines in the
paragraph.</P>
the user agent could simulate start and end tags for span
when inserting the fictional tag sequence for ::first-line.
<P><P::first-line><SPAN class="test"> This is a
somewhat long HTML
paragraph that will </SPAN></P::first-line><SPAN class="test"> be
broken into several
lines.</SPAN> The first line will be identified
by a fictional tag sequence. The other lines
will be treated as ordinary lines in the
paragraph.</P>
7.1.1. First formatted
line definition in CSS
In CSS, the ::first-line
pseudo-element can only have an effect when attached to a block-like
container such as a block box, inline-block, table-caption, or table-cell.
In such a case, it refers to the first
formatted line of that container.
The first formatted line of an element may occur inside a block-level
descendant in the same flow (i.e., a block-level descendant that is not
out-of-flow due to floating or positioning). For example, the first line
of the DIV in <DIV><P>This
line...</P></DIV> is the first line of the P
(assuming that both P and DIV are block-level).
The first line of a table-cell or inline-block cannot be the first
formatted line of an ancestor element. Thus, in <DIV><P
STYLE="display: inline-block">Hello<BR>Goodbye</P>
etcetera</DIV> the first formatted line of the DIV
is not the line "Hello".
Note: Note that the first line of the
p in this fragment: <p><br>First...
doesn't contain any letters (assuming the default style for
br in HTML 4). The word "First" is not on the first formatted
line.
A UA should act as if the fictional start tags of the ::first-line pseudo-elements were
nested just inside the innermost enclosing block-level element. (Since
CSS1 and CSS2 were silent on this case, authors should not rely on this
behavior.) For example, the fictional tag sequence for
The ::first-line
pseudo-element is similar to an inline-level element, but with certain
restrictions. The following CSS properties apply to a ::first-line pseudo-element: font
properties, color property, background properties, ‘word-spacing’, ‘letter-spacing’, ‘text-decoration’, ‘text-transform’, ‘line-height’. UAs may apply other properties as
well.
During CSS inheritance, the portion of a child element that occurs on
the first line only inherits properties applicable to the ::first-line pseudo-element from
the ::first-line
pseudo-element. For all other properties inheritence is from the
non-pseudo-element parent of the first line pseudo element. (The portion
of a child element that does not occur on the first line always inherits
from the parent of that child.)
7.2. The ::first-letter
pseudo-element
The ::first-letter pseudo-element represents the first
letter of an element, if it is not preceded by any other content (such as
images or inline tables) on its line. The ::first-letter pseudo-element
may be used for "initial caps" and "drop caps", which are common
typographical effects.
Punctuation (i.e, characters defined in Unicode in the "open" (Ps),
"close" (Pe), "initial" (Pi). "final" (Pf) and "other" (Po) punctuation
classes), that precedes or follows the first letter should be included. [UNICODE]
The ::first-letter also
applies if the first letter is in fact a digit, e.g., the "6" in "67
million dollars is a lot of money."
Note: In some cases the ::first-letter pseudo-element
should include more than just the first non-punctuation character on a
line. For example, combining characters must be kept with their base
character. Additionally, some languages may have specific rules about how
to treat certain letter combinations. The UA definition of ::first-letter should include at
least the default grapheme cluster as defined by UAX29 and may include
more than that as appropriate. In Dutch, for example, if the letter
combination "ij" appears at the beginning of an element, both letters
should be considered within the ::first-letter pseudo-element. [UAX29]
If the letters that would form the ::first-letter are not in the same
element, such as "‘T" in <p>‘<em>T..., the UA may
create a ::first-letter
pseudo-element from one of the elements, both elements, or simply not
create a pseudo-element.
Similarly, if the first letter(s) of the block are not at the start of
the line (for example due to bidirectional reordering), then the UA need
not create the pseudo-element(s).
Example:
The following CSS and HTML example
illustrates how overlapping pseudo-elements may interact. The first
letter of each P element will be green with a font size of ‘24pt’. The rest of the first formatted line will be
‘blue’ while the rest of the paragraph
will be ‘red’.
p { color: red; font-size: 12pt }
p::first-letter { color: green; font-size: 200% }
p::first-line { color: blue }
<P>Some text that ends up on two lines</P>
Assuming that a line break will occur before the word "ends", the fictional tag sequence for this
fragment might be:
<P>
<P::first-line>
<P::first-letter>
S
</P::first-letter>ome text that
</P::first-line>
ends up on two lines
</P>
The first letter must occur on the first
formatted line. For example, in this HTML fragment:
<p><br>First... the first line doesn't contain
any letters and ::first-letter
doesn't match anything (assuming the default style for br in
HTML 4). In particular, it does not match the "F" of "First."
7.2.1. Application in
CSS
In CSS, the ::first-letter
pseudo-element applies to block-like containers such as block, list-item,
table-cell, table-caption, and inline-block elements. Note: A future version of this specification
may allow this pseudo-element to apply to more display types.
The ::first-letter
pseudo-element can be used with all such elements that contain text, or
that have a descendant in the same flow that contains text. A UA should
act as if the fictional start tag of the ::first-letter pseudo-element is
just before the first text of the element, even if that first text is in a
descendant.
Example:
The fictional tag sequence for this HTML fragment:
<div>
<p>The first text.
is:
<div>
<p><div::first-letter><p::first-letter>T</...></...>he first text.
In CSS the first letter of a table-cell or inline-block cannot be the
first letter of an ancestor element. Thus, in <DIV><P
STYLE="display: inline-block">Hello<BR>Goodbye</P>
etcetera</DIV> the first letter of the DIV is
not the letter "H". In fact, the DIV doesn't have a first
letter.
If an element is a list item (‘display:
list-item’), the ::first-letter applies to the first
letter in the principal box after the marker. UAs may ignore ::first-letter on list items with
‘list-style-position: inside’. If an element
has ::before or ::after content, the ::first-letter applies to the first
letter of the element including that content.
Example:
After the rule p::before {content: "Note: "}, the selector
p::first-letter matches the "N" of "Note".
In CSS a ::first-line pseudo-element is similar to an inline-level
element if its ‘float’ property is
‘none’; otherwise, it is similar to a
floated element. The following properties that apply to ::first-letter pseudo-elements:
font properties, ‘text-decoration’,
‘text-transform’, ‘letter-spacing’, ‘word-spacing’ (when appropriate), ‘line-height’, ‘float’, ‘vertical-align’ (only if ‘float’ is ‘none’),
margin properties, padding properties, border properties, color property,
background properties. UAs may apply other properties as well. To allow
UAs to render a typographically correct drop cap or initial cap, the UA
may choose a line-height, width and height based on the shape of the
letter, unlike for normal elements.
Example:
This CSS and HTML example shows a possible rendering of an initial cap.
Note that the ‘line-height’ that is
inherited by the ::first-letter
pseudo-element is 1.1, but the UA in this example has computed the height
of the first letter differently, so that it doesn't cause any unnecessary
space between the first two lines. Also note that the fictional start tag
of the first letter is inside the span, and thus the font
weight of the first letter is normal, not bold as the span:
p { line-height: 1.1 }
p::first-letter { font-size: 3em; font-weight: normal }
span { font-weight: bold }
...
<p><span>Het hemelsche</span> gerecht heeft zich ten lange lesten<br>
Erbarremt over my en mijn benaeuwde vesten<br>
En arme burgery, en op mijn volcx gebed<br>
En dagelix geschrey de bange stad ontzet.
The following CSS will make a drop cap initial letter span about two
lines:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Drop cap initial letter</TITLE>
<STYLE type="text/css">
P { font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.2 }
P::first-letter { font-size: 200%; font-weight: bold; float: left }
SPAN { text-transform: uppercase }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P><SPAN>The first</SPAN> few words of an article
in The Economist.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
This example might be formatted as follows:
The fictional tag sequence is:
<P>
<SPAN>
<P::first-letter>
T
</P::first-letter>he first
</SPAN>
few words of an article in the Economist.
</P>
Note that the ::first-letter
pseudo-element tags abut the content (i.e., the initial character), while
the ::first-line pseudo-element start tag is inserted right after the
start tag of the block element.
In order to achieve traditional drop caps formatting, user agents may
approximate font sizes, for example to align baselines. Also, the glyph
outline may be taken into account when formatting.
7.3. Blank
This section intentionally left blank. (This section previously defined
a ::selection pseudo-element.)
7.4. The ::before and ::after
pseudo-elements
The ::before and ::after pseudo-elements can be
used to describe generated content before or after an element’s content.
They are explained in CSS 2.1 [CSS21].
When the ::first-letter and ::first-line pseudo-elements are
applied to an element having content generated using ::before or ::after, they apply to the first letter
or line of the element including the generated content.
8. Combinators
8.1. Descendant
combinator
At times, authors may want selectors to describe an element that is the
descendant of another element in the document tree (e.g., "an
EM element that is contained within an H1
element"). Descendant combinators express such a relationship. A
descendant combinator is whitespace that
separates two sequences of simple selectors. A selector of the form
"A B" represents an element B that is an
arbitrary descendant of some ancestor element A.
Examples:
For example, consider the following selector:
h1 em
It represents an em element being the descendant of an
h1 element. It is a correct and valid, but partial,
description of the following fragment:
<h1>This <span class="myclass">headline
is <em>very</em> important</span></h1>
The following selector:
div * p
represents a p element that is a grandchild or later
descendant of a div element. Note the whitespace on either
side of the "*" is not part of the universal selector; the whitespace is
a combinator indicating that the div must be the ancestor of
some element, and that that element must be an ancestor of the
p.
The following selector, which combines descendant combinators and attribute selectors, represents an
element that (1) has the href attribute set and (2) is
inside a p that is itself inside a div:
div p *[href]
8.2. Child combinators
A child combinator describes a childhood
relationship between two elements. A child combinator is made of the
"greater-than sign" (U+003E, >) character and
separates two sequences of simple selectors.
Examples:
The following selector represents a p element that is
child of body:
body > p
The following example combines descendant combinators and child
combinators.
div ol>li p
It represents a p element that is a descendant of an
li element; 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.
For information on selecting the first child of an element, please see
the section on the :first-child pseudo-class above.
8.3. Sibling
combinators
There are two different sibling combinators: the next-sibling combinator
and the subsequent-sibling combinator. In both cases, non-element nodes
(e.g. text between elements) are ignored when considering adjacency of
elements.
8.3.1.
Next-sibling combinator
The next-sibling combinator is
made of the "plus sign" (U+002B, +) character that
separates two sequences of simple selectors. The elements represented by
the two sequences share the same parent in the document tree and the
element represented by the first sequence immediately precedes the element
represented by the second one.
Examples:
The following selector represents a p element immediately
following a math element:
math + p
The following selector is conceptually similar to the one in the
previous example, except that it adds an attribute selector — it adds a
constraint to the h1 element, that it must have
class="opener":
h1.opener + h2
8.3.2.
Subsequent-sibling combinator
The subsequent-sibling
combinator is made of the "tilde" (U+007E, ~)
character that separates two sequences of simple selectors. The elements
represented by the two sequences share the same parent in the document
tree and the element represented by the first sequence precedes (not
necessarily immediately) the element represented by the second one.
Example:
h1 ~ pre
represents a pre element following an h1. It
is a correct and valid, but partial, description of:
<h1>Definition of the function a</h1>
<p>Function a(x) has to be applied to all figures in the table.</p>
<pre>function a(x) = 12x/13.5</pre>
9. Calculating a selector's
specificity
A selector's specificity is calculated as follows:
count the number of ID selectors in the selector (= a)
count the number of class selectors, attributes selectors, and
pseudo-classes in the selector (= b)
count the number of type selectors and pseudo-elements in the selector
(= c)
ignore the universal selector
Selectors inside the negation pseudo-class are
counted like any other, but the negation itself does not count as a
pseudo-class.
Concatenating the three numbers a-b-c (in a number system with a large
base) gives the specificity.
Note: Repeated occurrences of the same
simple selector are allowed and do increase specificity.
Note: the specificity of the styles
specified in an HTML style attribute is described in CSS 2.1.
[CSS21].
10. The grammar of Selectors
10.1. Grammar
The grammar below defines the syntax of Selectors. It is globally LL(1)
and can be locally LL(2) (but note that most UAs should not use it
directly, since it doesn’t express the parsing conventions). The format
of the productions is optimized for human consumption and some shorthand
notations beyond Yacc (see [YACC])
are used:
*: 0 or more
+: 1 or more
?: 0 or 1
|: separates alternatives
[ ]: grouping
The productions are:
selectors_group
: selector [ COMMA S* selector ]*
;
selector
: simple_selector_sequence [ combinator simple_selector_sequence ]*
;
combinator
/* combinators can be surrounded by whitespace */
: PLUS S* | GREATER S* | TILDE S* | S+
;
simple_selector_sequence
: [ type_selector | universal ]
[ HASH | class | attrib | pseudo | negation ]*
| [ HASH | class | attrib | pseudo | negation ]+
;
type_selector
: [ namespace_prefix ]? element_name
;
namespace_prefix
: [ IDENT | '*' ]? '|'
;
element_name
: IDENT
;
universal
: [ namespace_prefix ]? '*'
;
class
: '.' IDENT
;
attrib
: '[' S* [ namespace_prefix ]? IDENT S*
[ [ PREFIXMATCH |
SUFFIXMATCH |
SUBSTRINGMATCH |
'=' |
INCLUDES |
DASHMATCH ] S* [ IDENT | STRING ] S*
]? ']'
;
pseudo
/* '::' starts a pseudo-element, ':' a pseudo-class */
/* Exceptions: :first-line, :first-letter, :before and :after. */
/* Note that pseudo-elements are restricted to one per selector and */
/* occur only in the last simple_selector_sequence. */
: ':' ':'? [ IDENT | functional_pseudo ]
;
functional_pseudo
: FUNCTION S* expression ')'
;
expression
/* In CSS3, the expressions are identifiers, strings, */
/* or of the form "an+b" */
: [ [ PLUS | '-' | DIMENSION | NUMBER | STRING | IDENT ] S* ]+
;
negation
: NOT S* negation_arg S* ')'
;
negation_arg
: type_selector | universal | HASH | class | attrib | pseudo
;
10.2. Lexical scanner
The following is the tokenizer, written in Flex (see [FLEX]) notation. The tokenizer is
case-insensitive.
The two occurrences of "\377" represent the highest character number
that current versions of Flex can deal with (decimal 255). They should be
read as "\4177777" (decimal 1114111), which is the highest possible code
point in Unicode/ISO-10646. [UNICODE]
Each specification using Selectors must define the subset of Selectors
it allows and excludes, and describe the local meaning of all the
components of that subset.
Non normative examples:
Selectors profile
Specification
CSS level 1
Accepts
type selectors
class selectors
ID selectors
:link, :visited and :active pseudo-classes
descendant combinator
::first-line and ::first-letter pseudo-elements
Excludes
universal selector
attribute selectors
:hover and :focus pseudo-classes
:target pseudo-class
:lang() pseudo-class
all UI element states pseudo-classes
all structural pseudo-classes
negation pseudo-class
::before and ::after pseudo-elements
child combinators
sibling combinators
namespaces
Extra constraints
only one class selector allowed per sequence of simple selectors
Selectors profile
Specification
CSS level 2
Accepts
type selectors
universal selector
attribute presence and values selectors
class selectors
ID selectors
:link, :visited, :active, :hover, :focus, :lang() and :first-child
pseudo-classes
descendant combinator
child combinator
next-sibling combinator
::first-line and ::first-letter pseudo-elements
::before and ::after pseudo-elements
Excludes
substring matching attribute selectors
:target pseudo-classes
all UI element states pseudo-classes
all structural pseudo-classes other than :first-child
negation pseudo-class
subsequent-sibling combinators
namespaces
Extra constraints
more than one class selector per sequence of simple selectors (CSS1
constraint) allowed
In CSS, selectors express pattern matching rules that determine which
style rules apply to elements in the document tree.
The following selector (CSS level 2) will match all anchors
a with attribute name set inside a section 1
header h1:
h1 a[name]
All CSS declarations attached to such a selector are applied to
elements matching it.
Selectors profile
Specification
STTS 3
Accepts
type selectors
universal selectors
attribute selectors
class selectors
ID selectors
all structural pseudo-classes
all combinators
namespaces
Excludes
non-accepted pseudo-classes
pseudo-elements
Extra constraints
some selectors and combinators are not allowed in fragment
descriptions on the right side of STTS declarations.
Selectors can be used in STTS 3 in two different manners:
a selection mechanism equivalent to CSS selection mechanism:
declarations attached to a given selector are applied to elements
matching that selector,
fragment descriptions that appear on the right side of declarations.
12. Conformance and
requirements
This section defines conformance with the present specification only.
The inability of a user agent to implement part of this specification
due to the limitations of a particular device (e.g., non interactive user
agents will probably not implement dynamic pseudo-classes because they
make no sense without interactivity) does not imply non-conformance.
All specifications reusing Selectors must contain a Profile listing the subset of Selectors it accepts
or excludes, and describing the constraints it adds to the current
specification.
Invalidity is caused by a parsing error, e.g. an unrecognized token or a
token which is not allowed at the current parsing point.
User agents must observe the rules for handling parsing errors:
a selector containing an invalid simple selector, an invalid
combinator or an invalid token is invalid.
a group of selectors containing an invalid selector is invalid.
Specifications reusing Selectors must define how to handle parsing
errors. (In the case of CSS, the entire rule in which the selector is used
is dropped.)
13. Tests
This specification has a test
suite allowing user agents to verify their basic conformance to the
specification. This test suite does not pretend to be exhaustive and does
not cover all possible combined cases of Selectors.
14. Acknowledgements
The CSS working group would like to thank everyone who has sent comments
on this specification over the years.
In particular, the working group would like to extend special thanks to
Donna McManus, Justin Baker, Joel Sklar, and Molly Ives Brower who
performed the final editorial review of the last call draft. The working
group would also like to thank Adam Kuehn, Boris Zbarsky, David Perrell,
Elliotte Harold, Matthew Raymond, Ruud Steltenpool, Patrick Garies, Anton
Prowse, and the W3C Internationalization Working Group for their last call
comments and kind words.