Selector (CSS)

In Cascading Style Sheets, a selector is a pattern matching rule that determine which style rules apply to elements in the document tree.

Description

If all conditions in the pattern are true for a certain element, the selector matches the element.

Selectors may range from simple element names to rich contextual patterns.

Case sensitivity

The case-sensitivity of document language element names in selectors depends on the document language.

For example, in HTML, element names are case-insensitive, but in XML they are case-sensitive.

See Case sensitivity.

Fundamental selectors

• Class rule (CSS)
• HTML element rule (CSS)
• ID rule (CSS)

Complex selectors

• Combined selector (CSS)

See also

• Cascading Style Sheets
• Declaration (CSS)
• Document Object Model
• External style sheet
• Rule (CSS)
• Style sheet (CSS)
• Style sheet (web design)

External Links

• Selectors @ W3C