CSS child selectors

Last update on August 19 2022 21:50:33 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

Child Selectors

CSS child selectors select an element which is a child of another element.

If, x, y and z are three HTML elements and z resides within start and end tag of y, and y resides within start and end tag of x; then y is called as a child of x; and z is called as a child of y.

While writing child selectors, selectors must be separated with ">" combinator.

syntax:

Selector1 > Selector2 ......  { CSS-Property: value; ........................ }

Simple Example of CSS child selectors

CSS code:

p em {
color: red; /* sets color to red */ 
}

HTML code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Simple Example of CSS child selectors</title>
<link rel='stylesheet' href='Simple-Example-of-CSS-child-selector.css' type='text/css'>
</head>
<body>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, <em>consectetur</em> adipiscing elit. Donec a <em>urna</em> elit.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec a urna elit.

View this simple example of CSS child selector in a separate browser window.

Advanced Example of CSS child selectors

CSS code:

div > p > span > em {
color: red; /* sets color to red */
}

HTML code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Advanced Example of CSS child selectors</title>
<link rel='stylesheet' href='Advanced-Example-of-CSS-child-selector.css' type='text/css'>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<p><span>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, <em>consectetur</em> adipiscing elit.</span> <span>Donec a <em>urna</em> elit.</span></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec a urna elit.

View this advanced example of CSS child selector in a separate browser window.

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