CSS selectors can only look at the ancestor and at the sibling axes. You cannot look inside ("what children do I have") - only upwards ("what are my parents") and sideways ("what's next to me").

Examples. This:

div.header div.menu

refers to any 

This:

div.header > div.menu

refers to any 

This:

div.header + div.menu

refers to any 

This:

div.header ~ div.menu

refers to any 

There are no other "traversing" selectors in CSS (this statement refers to CSS2) and certainly there are no conditionals.


PatternMeaningDescribed in sectionFirst defined in CSS level
* any element Universal selector 2
E an element of type E Type selector 1
E[foo] an E element with a "foo" attribute Attribute selectors 2
E[foo="bar"] an E element whose "foo" attribute value is exactly equal to "bar" Attribute selectors 2
E[foo~="bar"] an E element whose "foo" attribute value is a list of whitespace-separated values, one of which is exactly equal to "bar" Attribute selectors 2
E[foo^="bar"] an E element whose "foo" attribute value begins exactly with the string "bar" Attribute selectors 3
E[foo$="bar"] an E element whose "foo" attribute value ends exactly with the string "bar" Attribute selectors 3
E[foo*="bar"] an E element whose "foo" attribute value contains the substring "bar" Attribute selectors 3
E[foo|="en"] an E element whose "foo" attribute has a hyphen-separated list of values beginning (from the left) with "en" Attribute selectors 2
E:root an E element, root of the document Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:nth-child(n) an E element, the n-th child of its parent Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:nth-last-child(n) an E element, the n-th child of its parent, counting from the last one Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:nth-of-type(n) an E element, the n-th sibling of its type Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:nth-last-of-type(n) an E element, the n-th sibling of its type, counting from the last one Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:first-child an E element, first child of its parent Structural pseudo-classes 2
E:last-child an E element, last child of its parent Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:first-of-type an E element, first sibling of its type Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:last-of-type an E element, last sibling of its type Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:only-child an E element, only child of its parent Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:only-of-type an E element, only sibling of its type Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:empty an E element that has no children (including text nodes) Structural pseudo-classes 3
E:link
E:visited
an E element being the source anchor of a hyperlink of which the target is not yet visited (:link) or already visited (:visited) The link pseudo-classes 1
E:active
E:hover
E:focus
an E element during certain user actions The user action pseudo-classes 1 and 2
E:target an E element being the target of the referring URI The target pseudo-class 3
E:lang(fr) an element of type E in language "fr" (the document language specifies how language is determined) The :lang() pseudo-class 2
E:enabled
E:disabled
a user interface element E which is enabled or disabled The UI element states pseudo-classes 3
E:checked a user interface element E which is checked (for instance a radio-button or checkbox) The UI element states pseudo-classes 3
E::first-line the first formatted line of an E element The ::first-line pseudo-element 1
E::first-letter the first formatted letter of an E element The ::first-letter pseudo-element 1
E::before generated content before an E element The ::before pseudo-element 2
E::after generated content after an E element The ::after pseudo-element 2
E.warning an E element whose class is "warning" (the document language specifies how class is determined). Class selectors 1
E#myid an E element with ID equal to "myid". ID selectors 1
E:not(s) an E element that does not match simple selector s Negation pseudo-class 3
E F an F element descendant of an E element Descendant combinator 1
E > F an F element child of an E element Child combinator 2
E + F an F element immediately preceded by an E element Adjacent sibling combinator 2
E ~ F an F element preceded by an E element General sibling combinator 3
Dato for oprettelse
19 Feb 2013