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CSS CSS Selectors Going Further with Attribute Selectors and Pseudo-Classes :only-child and :empty

Posted by Luca Di Pinto
Luca Di Pinto
8,051 Points

Need help! Can you explain me bette how :only-child works??

Hi everybody, it's not clear to me how :only-child works. If i use only the command :only-child, how does the browser apply these styles and where?? I'm not specifying any selectors, so I don't understand where and why the browser applies the styles! Sorry, I'm a bit confused! Thanks!

2 Answers

Simon Owerien
Simon Owerien
12,829 Points
Simon Owerien
Simon Owerien
12,829 Points

In this case the browser applies the styles to every element that is the only child of an element. For example:

<body>
<h1>Bla</h1>
<span><p>Yay</p></span>
</body>

:only-child{
color: green;
}

The green color doenst apply to "Bla" because <h1> is not the only child of <body> (<span> is another child of <body>). But it does apply to "Yay" because <p> is the only child of <span>

ywang04
ywang04
6,762 Points
ywang04
ywang04
6,762 Points

Good example. Thanks a lot.

Sarah Dillon
Sarah Dillon
10,704 Points
Sarah Dillon
Sarah Dillon
10,704 Points

It's a pseudo class so it doesn't necessarily need a tag to work.

:only-child selects any tag that is the only-child of a parent element

but you can select a tag if you wish i.e p:only-child which will only select <p> elements that are the only child of its parent element.

hope this helps :D