CSS Selectors and Combinators

Pattern	Meaning	CSS3?	Selector Type
*	any element		Universal selector
E	an element of type E		Type selector
E[foo]	an E element with a "foo" attribute		Attribute selector
E[foo="bar"]	an E element whose "foo" attribute value is exactly equal to "bar" (quotes are optional)		Attribute selector
E[foo~="bar"]	an E element whose "foo" attribute value is a list of whitespace-separated values, one of which is exactly equal to "bar" (quotes are optional)		Attribute selector
E[foo^="bar"]	an E element whose "foo" attribute value begins with "bar" (quotes are optional)	Y	Attribute selector
E[foo$="bar"]	an E element whose "foo" attribute value ends with "bar" (quotes are optional)	Y	Attribute selector
E[foo*="bar"]	an E element whose "foo" attribute value contains "bar" somewhere within it (quotes are optional)	Y	Attribute selector
E[foo|="en"]	an E element whose "foo" attribute has a hyphen-separated list of values beginning (from the left) with "en" (quotes are optional)		Attribute selector
E:root	an E element, root of the document	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:nth-child(n)	an E element, the nth child of its parent	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:nth-last-child(n)	an E element, the nth child of its parent, counting from the last one	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:nth-of-type(n)	an E element, the nth sibling of its type	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:nth-last-of-type(n)	an E element, the nth sibling of its type, counting from the last one	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:first-child	an E element, first child of its parent		Structural pseudo-class
E:last-child	an E element, last child of its parent	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:first-of-type	an E element, first sibling of its type	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:last-of-type	an E element, last sibling of its type	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:only-child	an E element, only child of its parent	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:only-of-type	an E element, only sibling of its type	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:empty	an E element that has no children (including text nodes)	Y	Structural pseudo-class
E:link,E:visited	an E element being the source anchor of a hyperlink of which the target is not yet visited (:link) or already visited (:visited)		Link pseudo-classes
E:focus,E:hover,E:active	an E element during certain user actions		User action pseudo-classes
E:target	an E element being the target of the referring URI	Y	Target pseudo-class
E:lang(fr)	an element of type E in language "fr"		:lang()pseudo-class
E:enabled,E:disabled	a user interface element E that is enabled or disabled	Y	UI element states pseudo-classes
E:checked	a user interface element E that is checked (for instance a radio button or checkbox)	Y	UI element states pseudo-classes
E::first-line	the first formatted line of an E element		::first-linepseudo-element
E::first-letter	the first formatted letter of an E element		::first-letterpseudo-element
E::before	generated content before an E element		::beforepseudo-element
E::after	generated content after an E element		::afterpseudo-element
E.warning	an E element that has a class of "warning"		Class selector
E#myid	an E element with an ID equal to "myid"		ID selector
E:not(s)	an E element that does not match simple selector s (for example,input:not(.warning))	Y	Negation pseudo-class
E F	an F element descendant of an E element		Descendant combinator
E > F	an F element child of an E element		Child combinator
E + F	an F element immediately preceded by an E element		Adjacent sibling combinator
E ~ F	an F element preceded by an E element	Y	General sibling combinator

Table B.2 is derived from the CSS3 selector module at www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/ and is copyright © World Wide Web Consortium (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University). All Rights Reserved.