CSS Reference

CSS Selectors

In CSS, selectors are patterns used to select the element(s) you want to style.
The "CSS" column indicates in which CSS version the property is defined (CSS1 or CSS2).

Selector	Example	Example description	CSS
.class	.intro	Selects all elements with class="intro"	1
#id	#firstname	Selects the element with id="firstname"	1
*	*	Selects all elements	2
element	p	Selects all <p> elements	1
element,element	div,p	Selects all <div> elements and all <p> elements	1
element element	div p	Selects all <p> elements inside <div> elements	1
element>element	div>p	Selects all <p> elements where the parent is a <div> element	2
element+element	div+p	Selects all <p> elements that are placed immediately after <div> elements	2
[attribute]	[target]	Selects all elements with a target attribute	2
[attribute=value]	[target=_blank]	Selects all elements with target="_blank"	2
[attribute~=value]	[title~=flower]	Selects all elements with a title attribute containing the word "flower"	2
[attribute|=language]	[lang|=en]	Selects all elements with a lang attribute value starting with "en"	2
:link	a:link	Selects all unvisited links	1
:visited	a:visited	Selects all visited links	1
:active	a:active	Selects the active link	1
:hover	a:hover	Selects links on mouse over	1
:focus	input:focus	Selects the input element which has focus	2
:first-letter	p:first-letter	Selects the first letter of every <p> element	1
:first-line	p:first-line	Selects the first line of every <p> element	1
:first-child	p:first-child	Selects every <p> elements that is the first child of its parent	2
:before	p:before	Insert content before every <p> element	2
:after	p:after	Insert content after every <p> element	2
:lang(language)	p:lang(it)	Selects every <p> element with a lang attribute value starting with "it"	2