CSS | Combinators

30 Jun, 2021
CSS combinators are explaining the relationship between two selectors. CSS selectors are the patterns used to select the elements for style purpose. A CSS selector can be a simple selector or a complex selector consisting of more than one selector connected using combinators. There are four types of combinators available in CSS which are discussed below:  
General Sibling selector (~)
Adjecant Sibling selector (+)
Child selector (>)
Descendant selector (space)
General Sibling selector: The general sibling selector is used to select the element that follows the first selector element and also share the same parent as the first selector element. This can be used to select a group of elements that share the same parent element. 
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head>    <title>Combinator Property</title>    <style>        div ~ p{            color: #009900;            font-size:32px;            font-weight:bold;            margin:0px;            text-align:center;        }        div {            text-align:center;        }    </style></head> <body>    <div>General sibling selector property</div>     <p>GeeksforGeeks</p>     <div>        <div>child div content</div>         <p>G4G</p>     </div>     <p>Geeks</p>      <p>Hello</p> </body></html>                   
Output:  
Adjacent Sibling selector: The Adjacent sibling selector is used to select the element that is adjacent or the element that is the next to the specified selector tag. This combinator selects only one tag that is just next to the specified tag. 
html
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head>    <title>Combinator Property</title>    <style>        div + p{            color: #009900;            font-size:32px;            font-weight:bold;            margin:0px;            text-align:center;        }        div {            text-align:center;        }        p {            text-align:center;        }    </style></head> <body>    <div>Adjacent sibling selector property</div>     <p>GeeksforGeeks</p>     <div>        <div>child div content</div>         <p>G4G</p>     </div>     <p>Geeks</p>      <p>Hello</p> </body></html>                   
Output:  
Child Selector: This selector is used to select the element that is the immediate child of the specified tag. This combinator is stricter than the descendant selector because it selects only the second selector if it has the first selector element as its parent.  
html
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head>    <title>Combinator Property</title>    <style>        div > p{            color: #009900;            font-size:32px;            font-weight:bold;            margin:0px;            text-align:center;        }        div {            text-align:center;        }        p {            text-align:center;        }    </style></head> <body>    <div>Child selector property</div>     <p>GeeksforGeeks</p>     <div>        <div>child div content</div>         <p>G4G</p>     </div>     <p>Geeks</p>      <p>Hello</p> </body></html>                   
Output:  
Descendant selector: This selector is used to select all the child elements of the specified tag. The tags can be the direct child of the specified tag or can be very deep in the specified tag. This combinator combines the two selectors such that selected elements have an ancestor same as the first selector element. 
html
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head>    <title>Combinator Property</title>    <style>        div p{            color: #009900;            font-size:32px;            font-weight:bold;            margin:0px;            text-align:center;        }        div {            text-align:center;        }        p {            text-align:center;        }    </style></head> <body>    <div>Descendant selector property</div>     <p>GeeksforGeeks</p>     <div>        <div>child div content</div>         <p>G4G</p>          <p>Descendant selector</p>     </div>     <p>Geeks</p>      <p>Hello</p> </body></html>                   
Output:  
Supported Browser:
Google Chrome
Internet Explorer (after IE 7.0)
Firefox
Opera
Safari
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