Apply CSS Style to child elements

263
votes

I want to apply styles only to the table inside the DIV with a particular class:

Note: I'd rather use a css-selector for children elements.

Why does the #1 works and #2 doesn't?

1:

div.test th, div.test td, div.test caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}

2:

div.test th, td, caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}

HTML: 

<html>
    <head>
        <style>
            div.test > th, td, caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>
            <table border="2">
                <tr><td>some</td></tr>
                <tr><td>data</td></tr>
                <tr><td>here</td></tr>
            </table>
        </div>
        <div class="test">
            <table  border="2">
                <tr><td>some</td></tr>
                <tr><td>data</td></tr>
                <tr><td>here</td></tr>
            </table>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

What am I doing wrong?

8
csscss-selectors
Don't forget that the >, + and [ ] selectors are unavailable for IE6 and under. – Erick

8 Answers

345
votes

This code "div.test th, td, caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}" applies a rule to all th elements which are contained by a div element with a class named test, in addition to all td elements and all caption elements.

It is not the same as "all td, th and caption elements which are contained by a div element with a class of test". To accomplish that you need to change your selectors:

'>' isn't fully supported by some older browsers (I'm looking at you, Internet Explorer). 

div.test th,
div.test td,
div.test caption {
    padding: 40px 100px 40px 50px;
}
135
votes
.test * {padding: 40px 100px 40px 50px;}
89
votes

The > selector matches direct children only, not descendants.

You want 

div.test th, td, caption {}

or more likely

div.test th, div.test td, div.test caption {}

Edit:

The first one says 

  div.test th, /* any <th> underneath a <div class="test"> */
  td,          /* or any <td> anywhere at all */
  caption      /* or any <caption> */

Whereas the second says

  div.test th,     /* any <th> underneath a <div class="test"> */
  div.test td,     /* or any <td> underneath a <div class="test"> */
  div.test caption /* or any <caption> underneath a <div class="test">  */

In your original the div.test > th says any <th> which is a **direct** child of <div class="test">, which means it will match <div class="test"><th>this</th></div> but won't match <div class="test"><table><th>this</th></table></div>

10
votes

If you want to add style in all child and no specification for html tag then use it.

Parent tag div.parent

child tag inside the div.parent like <a>, <input>, <label> etc.

code : div.parent * {color: #045123!important;}

You can also remove important, its not required

7
votes

Here is some code that I recently wrote. I think that it provides a basic explanation of combining class/ID names with pseudoclasses.

.content {
  width: 800px;
  border: 1px solid black;
  border-radius: 10px;
  box-shadow: 0 0 5px 2px grey;
  margin: 30px auto 20px auto;
  /*height:200px;*/

}
p.red {
  color: red;
}
p.blue {
  color: blue;
}
p#orange {
  color: orange;
}
p#green {
  color: green;
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<head>
  <title>Class practice</title>
  <link href="wrench_favicon.ico" rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" />
</head>

<body>
  <div class="content">
    <p id="orange">orange</p>
    <p id="green">green</p>
    <p class="red">red</p>
    <p class="blue">blue</p>
  </div>
</body>

</html>
5
votes
div.test td, div.test caption, div.test th

works for me.

The child selector > does not work in IE6.

2
votes

As far as I know this:

div[class=yourclass] table {  your style here; }

or in your case even this:

div.yourclass table { your style here; }

(but this will work for elements with yourclass that might not be divs) will affect only tables inside yourclass. And, as Ken says, the > is not supported everywhere (and div[class=yourclass] too, so use the point notation for classes).

1
votes

This code can do the trick as well, using the SCSS syntax

.parent {
  & > * {
    margin-right: 15px;
    &:last-child {
      margin-right: 0;
    }
  }
}