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General Discussion

Posted by Reggie Sibley
Reggie Sibley
6,018 Points

Selectors...

Ok so lets say i'm trying to target the <p> element which is nested within the <h1> element right below it in my HTML document with CSS, whats the difference between just selecting

h1 p { background: red; }

OR..........

h1 + p { background:red; }

whats a scenario were they will work differently depending on the situation? because even though the <p> element is not nested right below the <h1> you can still select it with...

h1 ~ p { background:red; }

but i know this will select every <p> element. But my overall question is what's the biggest difference when using these selectors to select an element?

1 Answer

Tim Rohweder
Tim Rohweder
25,527 Points
Tim Rohweder
Tim Rohweder
25,527 Points

Hi Reggie,

The first one --- h1 p {background: red; } --- is a descendant selector. If you had a paragraph nested inside an h1 tag (unlikely, you would do this...), you would use a selector like that.

The second one --- h1 + p --- is an adjacent sibling combinator selector. So in this case, it will select each paragraph that comes immediately after an h1 tag.

Check out this article for an easy-to-understand and more thorough explanation:

http://css-tricks.com/child-and-sibling-selectors/

Hope that helps!

-Tim