CSS Selector that applies to elements with two classes

Adam picture Adam · Sep 22, 2010 · Viewed 286.9k times · Source

Is there a way to select an element with CSS based on the value of the class attribute being set to two specific classes. For example, let's say I have 3 divs:

<div class="foo">Hello Foo</div>
<div class="foo bar">Hello World</div>
<div class="bar">Hello Bar</div>

What CSS could I write to select ONLY the second element in the list, based on the fact that it is a member of both the foo AND bar classes?

Answer

BoltClock picture BoltClock · Sep 22, 2010

Chain both class selectors (without a space in between):

.foo.bar {
    /* Styles for element(s) with foo AND bar classes */
}

If you still have to deal with ancient browsers like IE6, be aware that it doesn't read chained class selectors correctly: it'll only read the last class selector (.bar in this case) instead, regardless of what other classes you list.

To illustrate how other browsers and IE6 interpret this, consider this CSS:

* {
    color: black;
}

.foo.bar {
    color: red;
}

Output on supported browsers is:

<div class="foo">Hello Foo</div>       <!-- Not selected, black text [1] -->
<div class="foo bar">Hello World</div> <!-- Selected, red text [2] -->
<div class="bar">Hello Bar</div>       <!-- Not selected, black text [3] -->

Output on IE6 is:

<div class="foo">Hello Foo</div>       <!-- Not selected, black text [1] -->
<div class="foo bar">Hello World</div> <!-- Selected, red text [2] -->
<div class="bar">Hello Bar</div>       <!-- Selected, red text [2] -->

Footnotes:

  • Supported browsers:
    1. Not selected as this element only has class foo.
    2. Selected as this element has both classes foo and bar.
    3. Not selected as this element only has class bar.

  • IE6:
    1. Not selected as this element doesn't have class bar.
    2. Selected as this element has class bar, regardless of any other classes listed.