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Possible Duplicate:
Is there a CSS parent selector?

I know this is a shot in the dark, but is there a way, using css only, CSS2, no jquery, no javascript, to select and style an element's ancestor? I've gone through the selectors but am posting this in case I missed something or there is a clever workaround.

For example, say I have a table with classname "test" nested inside a div. Is there some sort of:

<div>
    <table class="test">
    </table>
</div>

div (with child) .test
{
     /*styling, for div, not .test ...*/
}
Community
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Steve
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4 Answers4

12

There is no such thing as parent selector in CSS2 or CSS3. And there may never be, actually, because the whole "Cascading" part of CSS is not going to be pretty to deal with once you start doing parent selectors.

That's what jQuery is for :-)

ChssPly76
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    jQuery and JavaScript in general is for adding user interface functionality; not for specifying any style. jQuery and JavaScript are used for style due to the shortcomings of CSS, but are not meant for this purpose. – Scharrels Aug 09 '09 at 17:19
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    First of all, there is a smiley after that sentence. Secondly, I disagree. Would it be better to be able to specify all the presentation aspects via CSS? Of course. Is it possible? No. jQuery is a brilliant tool that lets you enrich user's experience - and if that includes setting a style that is otherwise impossible to set in a consistent way, then that's exactly what I'm going to do. – ChssPly76 Aug 09 '09 at 17:26
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    -1 for jQuery where OP simply could resort to vanilla JS. – PeeHaa Jun 23 '12 at 21:10
9

In CSS there is an :empty selector that allows you to match empty elements, you can negate the effect with :not selector.

div:not(:empty) {
    // your styles here
}

However I'm not sure if all browsers support this.

RaYell
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3
div:not(:empty) {
    margin:0;
}

is NOT recognized by http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ as CSS2

it's the purpose of CSS to "cascade" down from the more containing to the more specific elements. I guess it's possible for you to "reverse your logic", like in

div.myclass   { /* format parent */ }
div.myclass * { /* neutralize formats in descendants */}
div.myclass img { /* more specific formats for img children */ }

good luck Mike

harriyott
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MikeD
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  • That can't vary the format the parent depending on what descedendents it has, which is what the OP was asking. – ChrisW Feb 20 '11 at 14:56
2

:empty pseudoclass supported by Firefox, but is not compatible with IE.

But a very simple jQuery workaround for IE is at http://www.webmasterworld.com/css/3944510.htm . Saved my bacon

teebo
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