Is there a CSS parent selector? (ok)

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1014861/is-there-a-css-parent-selector

Đã ok

<!doctype html>
<html>
	<head>
		<title></title>
		<style>
/* accessory */
.parent {
	width: 200px;
	height: 200px;
	background: gray;
}
.parent, 
.selector {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: center;
	align-items: center;
}
.selector {
	cursor: pointer;
	background: silver;
	width: 50%;
	height: 50%;
}
		</style>
		<style>
/* pertinent */
.parent {
	background: gray;
	pointer-events: none;
}
.parent:hover {
	background: fuchsia;
}
.parent 
.selector {
	pointer-events: auto;
}
		</style>
	</head>
	<body>
		<div class="parent">
			<div class="selector"></div>
		</div>
	</body>
</html>

How do I select the <li> element that is a direct parent of the anchor element?

As an example, my CSS would be something like this:

li < a.active {
    property: value;
}

Obviously there are ways of doing this with JavaScript, but I'm hoping that there is some sort of workaround that exists native to CSS Level 2.

The menu that I am trying to style is being spewed out by a CMS, so I can't move the active element to the <li> element... (unless I theme the menu creation module which I'd rather not do).

33 Answers

There is currently no way to select the parent of an element in CSS.

If there was a way to do it, it would be in either of the current CSS selectors specs:

li:has(> a.active) { /* styles to apply to the li tag */ }

I don’t think you can select the parent in CSS only.

*! > input[type=text] { background: #000; }

This will select any parent of a text input. But wait, there's still much more. If you want, you can select a specified parent:

.input-wrap! > input[type=text] { background: #000; }

Or select it when it's active:

.input-wrap! > input[type=text]:focus { background: #000; }

Check out this HTML:

<div class="input-wrap">
    <input type="text" class="Name"/>
    <span class="help hide">Your name sir</span>
</div>

You can select that span.help when the input is active and show it:

.input-wrap! .help > input[type=text]:focus { display: block; }

There are many more capabilities; just check out the documentation of the plugin.

$("a.active").parents('li').css("property", "value");

There is no parent selector; just the way there is no previous sibling selector. One good reason for not having these selectors is because the browser has to traverse through all children of an element to determine whether or not a class should be applied. For example, if you wrote:

body:contains-selector(a.active) { background: red; }

Then the browser will have to wait until it has loaded and parsed everything until the </body> to determine if the page should be red or not.

There isn't a way to do this in CSS 2. You could add the class to the li and reference the a:

li.active > a {
    property: value;
}

Try to switch a to block display, and then use any style you want. The a element will fill the li element, and you will be able to modify its look as you want. Don't forget to set li padding to 0.

li {
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
}
a {
  display: block;
  width: 100%;
  color: ..., background: ..., border-radius: ..., etc...
}
a.active {
  color: ..., background: ...
}

E ~ F {
    property: value;
}

I know the OP was looking for a CSS solution but it is simple to achieve using jQuery. In my case I needed to find the <ul> parent tag for a <span> tag contained in the child <li>. jQuery has the :has selector so it's possible to identify a parent by the children it contains:

$("ul:has(#someId)")

will select the ul element that has a child element with id someId. Or to answer the original question, something like the following should do the trick (untested):

$("li:has(.active)")

The pseudo element :focus-within allows a parent to be selected if a descendent has focus.

An element can be focused if it has a tabindex attribute.

Example

.click {
  cursor: pointer;
}

.color:focus-within .change {
  color: red;
}

.color:focus-within p {
  outline: 0;
}

<div class="color">
  <p class="change" tabindex="0">
    I will change color
  </p>
  <p class="click" tabindex="1">
    Click me
  </p>
</div>

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This is the most discussed aspect of the Selectors Level 4 specification. With this, a selector will be able to style an element according to its child by using an exclamation mark after the given selector (!).

For example:

body! a:hover{
   background: red;
}

will set a red background-color if the user hovers over any anchor.

You might try to use hyperlink as the parent, and then change the inner elements on hover. Like this:

a.active h1 {color:red;}

a.active:hover h1 {color:green;}

a.active h2 {color:blue;}

a.active:hover h1 {color:yellow;}

Currently there is no parent selector & it is not even being discussed in any of the talks of W3C. You need to understand how CSS is evaluated by the browser to actually understand if we need it or not.

There is a lot of technical explanation here.

Just an idea for horizontal menu...

Part of HTML

<div class='list'>
  <div class='item'>
    <a>Link</a>
  </div>
  <div class='parent-background'></div>
  <!-- submenu takes this place -->
</div>

Part of CSS

/* Hide parent backgrounds... */
.parent-background {
  display: none; }

/* ... and show it when hover on children */
.item:hover + .parent-background {
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  z-index: 10;
  top: 0;
  width: 100%; }

Here's a hack using pointer-events with hover:

<!doctype html>
<html>
	<head>
		<title></title>
		<style>
/* accessory */
.parent {
	width: 200px;
	height: 200px;
	background: gray;
}
.parent, 
.selector {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: center;
	align-items: center;
}
.selector {
	cursor: pointer;
	background: silver;
	width: 50%;
	height: 50%;
}
		</style>
		<style>
/* pertinent */
.parent {
	background: gray;
	pointer-events: none;
}
.parent:hover {
	background: fuchsia;
}
.parent 
.selector {
	pointer-events: auto;
}
		</style>
	</head>
	<body>
		<div class="parent">
			<div class="selector"></div>
		</div>
	</body>
</html>

Run code snippetExpand snippet

One of the things EQCSS adds is a parent selector. It works in all browsers, Internet Explorer 8 and up. Here's the format:

@element 'a.active' {
  $parent {
    background: red;
  }
}

So here we've opened an element query on every element a.active, and for the styles inside that query, things like $parent make sense, because there's a reference point. The browser can find the parent, because it's very similar to parentNode in JavaScript.

3.2. The Nesting At-Rule: @nest
While direct nesting looks nice, it is somewhat fragile. Some valid nesting selectors, like .foo &, are disallowed, and editing the selector in certain ways can make the rule invalid unexpectedly. As well, some people find the nesting challenging to distinguish visually from the surrounding declarations.
To aid in all these issues, this specification defines the @nest rule, which imposes fewer restrictions on how to validly nest style rules. Its syntax is:
@nest = @nest <selector> { <declaration-list> }
The @nest rule functions identically to a style rule: it starts with a selector, and contains declarations that apply to the elements the selector matches. The only difference is that the selector used in a @nest rule must be nest-containing, which means it contains a nesting selector in it somewhere. A list of selectors is nest-containing if all of its individual complex selectors are nest-containing.

(Copy and pasted from the URL above).

Example of valid selectors under this specification:

.foo {
  color: red;
  @nest & > .bar {
    color: blue;
  }
}
/* Equivalent to:
   .foo { color: red; }
   .foo > .bar { color: blue; }
 */

.foo {
  color: red;
  @nest .parent & {
    color: blue;
  }
}
/* Equivalent to:
   .foo { color: red; }
   .parent .foo { color: blue; }
 */

.foo {
  color: red;
  @nest :not(&) {
    color: blue;
  }
}
/* Equivalent to:
   .foo { color: red; }
   :not(.foo) { color: blue; }
 */

Technically there is no direct way to do this. However, you can sort that out with either jQuery or JavaScript.

However, you can do something like this as well.

a.active h1 {color: blue;}
a.active p {color: green;}

jQuery

$("a.active").parents('li').css("property", "value");

The short answer is NO; we don't have a parent selector at this stage in CSS, but if you don't have to swap the elements or classes anyway, the second option is using JavaScript. Something like this:

var activeATag = Array.prototype.slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('a.active'));

activeATag.map(function(x) {
  if(x.parentNode.tagName === 'LI') {
    x.parentNode.style.color = 'red'; // Your property: value;
  }
});

Or a shorter way if you use jQuery in your application:

$('a.active').parents('li').css('color', 'red'); // Your property: value;

Although there is no parent selector in standard CSS at present, I am working on a (personal) project called axe (ie. Augmented CSS Selector Syntax / ACSSSS) which, among its 7 new selectors, includes both:

an immediate parent selector < (which enables the opposite selection to >)
an any ancestor selector ^ (which enables the opposite selection to [SPACE])

axe is presently in a relatively early BETA stage of development.

See a demo here:

At least up to and including CSS 3 you cannot select like that. But it can be done pretty easily nowadays in JavaScript, you just need to add a bit of vanilla JavaScript, notice that the code is pretty short.

cells = document.querySelectorAll('div');
[].forEach.call(cells, function (el) {
    //console.log(el.nodeName)
    if (el.hasChildNodes() && el.firstChild.nodeName=="A") {
        console.log(el)
    };
});

<div>Peter</div>
<div><a href="#">Jackson link</a></div>
<div>Philip</div>
<div><a href="#">Pullman link</a></div>

Run code snippetExpand snippet

Any ideas?

CSS 4 will be fancy if it adds some hooks into walking backwards. Till then it is possible (though not advisable) to use checkbox and/or radio inputs to break the usual way that things are connected, and through that also allow CSS to operate outside of its normal scope...

/* Hide things that may be latter shown */
.menu__checkbox__selection,
.menu__checkbox__style,
.menu__hidden {
  display: none;
  visibility: hidden;
  opacity: 0;
  filter: alpha(opacity=0); /* Old Microsoft opacity */
}


/* Base style for content and style menu */
.main__content {
  background-color: lightgray;
  color: black;
}

.menu__hidden {
  background-color: black;
  color: lightgray;
  /* Make list look not so _listy_ */
  list-style: none;
  padding-left: 5px;
}

.menu__option {
  box-sizing: content-box;
  display: block;
  position: static;
  z-index: auto;
}

/* &#9660; - \u2630 - Three Bars */
/*
.menu__trigger__selection::before {
  content: '\2630';
  display: inline-block;
}
*/

/* &#9660; - Down Arrow */
.menu__trigger__selection::after {
  content: "\25BC";
  display: inline-block;
  transform: rotate(90deg);
}


/* Customize to look more `select` like if you like */
.menu__trigger__style:hover,
.menu__trigger__style:active {
  cursor: pointer;
  background-color: darkgray;
  color: white;
}


/**
 * Things to do when checkboxes/radios are checked
 */

.menu__checkbox__selection:checked + .menu__trigger__selection::after,
.menu__checkbox__selection[checked] + .menu__trigger__selection::after {
  transform: rotate(0deg);
}

/* This bit is something that you may see elsewhere */
.menu__checkbox__selection:checked ~ .menu__hidden,
.menu__checkbox__selection[checked] ~ .menu__hidden {
  display: block;
  visibility: visible;
  opacity: 1;
  filter: alpha(opacity=100); /* Microsoft!? */
}


/**
 * Hacky CSS only changes based off non-inline checkboxes
 * ... AKA the stuff you cannot unsee after this...
 */
.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-default"]:checked ~ .main__content {
  background-color: lightgray;
  color: black;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-default"]:checked ~ .main__content .menu__trigger__style[for="style-default"] {
  color: darkorange;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-one"]:checked ~ .main__content {
  background-color: black;
  color: lightgray;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-one"]:checked ~ .main__content .menu__trigger__style[for="style-one"] {
  color: darkorange;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-two"]:checked ~ .main__content {
  background-color: darkgreen;
  color: red;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-two"]:checked ~ .main__content .menu__trigger__style[for="style-two"] {
  color: darkorange;
}

<!--
  This bit works, but will one day cause troubles,
  but truth is you can stick checkbox/radio inputs
  just about anywhere and then call them by id with
  a `for` label. Keep scrolling to see what I mean
-->
<input type="radio"
       name="colorize"
       class="menu__checkbox__style"
       id="style-default">
<input type="radio"
       name="colorize"
       class="menu__checkbox__style"
       id="style-one">
<input type="radio"
       name="colorize"
       class="menu__checkbox__style"
       id="style-two">


<div class="main__content">

  <p class="paragraph__split">
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
    tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,
    quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
  </p>

  <input type="checkbox"
         class="menu__checkbox__selection"
         id="trigger-style-menu">
  <label for="trigger-style-menu"
         class="menu__trigger__selection"> Theme</label>

  <ul class="menu__hidden">
    <li class="menu__option">
      <label for="style-default"
             class="menu__trigger__style">Default Style</label>
    </li>

    <li class="menu__option">
      <label for="style-one"
             class="menu__trigger__style">First Alternative Style</label>
    </li>

    <li class="menu__option">
      <label for="style-two"
             class="menu__trigger__style">Second Alternative Style</label>
    </li>
  </ul>

  <p class="paragraph__split">
    consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse
    cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non
    proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
  </p>

</div>

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... pretty gross, but with just CSS and HTML it is possible to touch and re-touch anything but the body and :root from just about anywhere by linking the id and for properties of radio/checkbox inputs and label triggers; likely someone'll show how to re-touch those at some point.

One additional caveat is that only one input of a specific id maybe used, first checkbox/radio wins a toggled state in other words... But multiple labels can all point to the same input, though that would make both the HTML and CSS look even grosser.
... I'm hoping that there is some sort of workaround that exists native to CSS Level 2...

I am not sure about the other : selectors, but I :checked for pre-CSS 3. If I remember correctly, it was something like [checked] which is why you may find it in the above code, for example,

.menu__checkbox__selection:checked ~ .menu__hidden,
.menu__checkbox__selection[checked] ~ .menu__hidden {
 /* rules: and-stuff; */
}

... but for things like ::after and :hover, I'm not at all certain in which CSS version those first appeared.

No, you cannot select the parent in CSS only.

Changing parent element based on child element can currently only happen when we have an <input> element inside the parent element. When an input gets focus, its corresponding parent element can get affected using CSS.

Following example will help you understand using :focus-within in CSS.

.outer-div {
  width: 400px;
  height: 400px;
  padding: 50px;
  float: left
}

.outer-div:focus-within {
  background: red;
}

.inner-div {
  width: 200px;
  height: 200px;
  float: left;
  background: yellow;
  padding: 50px;
}

<div class="outer-div">
  <div class="inner-div">
    I want to change outer-div(Background color) class based on inner-div. Is it possible?
    <input type="text" placeholder="Name" />
  </div>
</div>

Run code snippetExpand snippet

h3
  font-size: 20px
  margin-bottom: 10px
  .some-parent-selector &
    font-size: 24px
    margin-bottom: 20px

CSS output:

h3 {
  font-size: 20px;
  margin-bottom: 10px;
}
.some-parent-selector h3 {
  font-size: 24px;
  margin-bottom: 20px;
}

I'd hire some JavaScript code to do that. For example, in React when you iterate over an array, add another class to the parent component, which indicates it contains your children:

<div className={`parent ${hasKiddos ? 'has-kiddos' : ''}`}>
    {kiddos.map(kid => <div key={kid.id} />)}
</div>

And then simply:

.parent {
    color: #000;
}

.parent.has-kiddos {
    color: red;
}

PreviousSự khác biệt giữa :empty và :blank trong CSS (ok)

Last updated 4 years ago

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Is there a CSS parent selector? (ok)

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1014861/is-there-a-css-parent-selector

Đã ok

<!doctype html>
<html>
	<head>
		<title></title>
		<style>
/* accessory */
.parent {
	width: 200px;
	height: 200px;
	background: gray;
}
.parent, 
.selector {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: center;
	align-items: center;
}
.selector {
	cursor: pointer;
	background: silver;
	width: 50%;
	height: 50%;
}
		</style>
		<style>
/* pertinent */
.parent {
	background: gray;
	pointer-events: none;
}
.parent:hover {
	background: fuchsia;
}
.parent 
.selector {
	pointer-events: auto;
}
		</style>
	</head>
	<body>
		<div class="parent">
			<div class="selector"></div>
		</div>
	</body>
</html>

Asked 11 years agoActive Viewed 2.1m times3212467

How do I select the <li> element that is a direct parent of the anchor element?

As an example, my CSS would be something like this:

li < a.active {
    property: value;
}

Obviously there are ways of doing this with JavaScript, but I'm hoping that there is some sort of workaround that exists native to CSS Level 2.

The menu that I am trying to style is being spewed out by a CMS, so I can't move the active element to the <li> element... (unless I theme the menu creation module which I'd rather not do).

Any ideas? follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesasked Jun 18 '09 at 19:5945k1212 gold badges5757 silver badges9494 bronze badges

This question is over a decade old, but if anyone is interested in a way to do this on individual clients (not on a server), I can provide an answer. Just let me know. Please remember that my answer will not work on servers, and thus will not satisfy the most common need. –

33 Answers

125655

There is currently no way to select the parent of an element in CSS.

If there was a way to do it, it would be in either of the current CSS selectors specs:

That said, the includes a :has() pseudo-class that will provide this capability. It will be similar to the .

li:has(> a.active) { /* styles to apply to the li tag */ }

However, as of May 2020, .

In the meantime, you'll have to resort to JavaScript if you need to select a parent element. follow 4,51911 gold badge2929 silver badges4848 bronze badgesanswered Jun 18 '09 at 20:1685.8k4343 gold badges170170 silver badges215215 bronze badges

69It would seem that it has already been suggested and rejected: –
14Looks like the has been revisited, except by using a ! now: The subject of the selector can be explicitly identified by appending an exclamation mark (!) to one of the compound selectors in a selector. –
13The prepended $ looked better for me... the appended ! can be overlooked more easily. –
51Major plot twist! The Selectors 4 WD was just updated to exclude the subject indicator from the fast profile, which is to be used by CSS implementations. If this change remains, it means you won't be able to use the subject indicator in stylesheets anymore (unless you use add some sort of polyfill like the one described in ) - you can only use it with the Selectors API and anywhere else that the complete profile may be implemented. –
56Another major update: it looks like they're considering doing away with the subject selector syntax altogether and replacing it with the :has() pseudo everybody has come to know and love from jQuery. The latest ED has removed all references to the subject indicator, and replaced it with the :has() pseudo. I don't know the exact reasons, but the CSSWG held a poll some time ago and the results must have influenced this decision. It's most likely for compatibility with jQuery (so it can leverage qSA without modifications), and because the subject indicator syntax proved too confusing. –

155

I don’t think you can select the parent in CSS only.

But as you already seem to have an .active class, it would be easier to move that class to the li (instead of the a). That way you can access both the li and the a via CSS only. follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Jun 18 '09 at 20:0886.9k2020 gold badges104104 silver badges126126 bronze badges

4You can't shift the pseudo selector to the list item, as it is not a focusable element. He's using the :active selector, so when the anchor is active he wants the list item to be affected. List items will never be in the active state. As an aside, it's unfortunate that such a selector doesn't exist. Getting a pure CSS menu to be fully keyboard accessible seems to be impossible without it (using sibling selectors you can make submenus created using nested lists to appear, but once the list gains focus it becomes hidden again). If there are any CSS-only solutions to this particular conun – user914183
13@Dominic Aquilina Take a look at the question, the OP is using a class, not a pseudo selector. –

1291

You can use :

*! > input[type=text] { background: #000; }

This will select any parent of a text input. But wait, there's still much more. If you want, you can select a specified parent:

.input-wrap! > input[type=text] { background: #000; }

Or select it when it's active:

.input-wrap! > input[type=text]:focus { background: #000; }

Check out this HTML:

<div class="input-wrap">
    <input type="text" class="Name"/>
    <span class="help hide">Your name sir</span>
</div>

You can select that span.help when the input is active and show it:

.input-wrap! .help > input[type=text]:focus { display: block; }

There are many more capabilities; just check out the documentation of the plugin.

BTW, it works in Internet Explorer. follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Aug 13 '11 at 10:131,68711 gold badge1515 silver badges1818 bronze badges

5suppose using jquery patent() would be faster. This need testing, however –
2@Idered It fails when you have CSS declaration of a Selector Subject with no child selector (#a! alone throws an error, #a! p works), and so the others will not works either because of Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'split' of undefined: see –
3@HerrSerker I think #a! is an invalid selector, what should it select? –
2@Idered I don't know. The spec doesn't say it is illegal. #a! should select itself. At least their should be no error in the JavaScript –
5Per my comment on the accepted answer, it looks like the polyfill may be required even in the near future after all, because the subject indicator may never be implemented by browsers in CSS. –

1101

As mentioned by a couple of others, there isn't a way to style an element's parent/s using just CSS but the following works with :

$("a.active").parents('li').css("property", "value");

follow 6,15333 gold badges3232 silver badges2929 bronze badgesanswered Dec 14 '09 at 14:512,89022 gold badges2020 silver badges1616 bronze badges

21The < selector does not exist (verified using jQuery 1.7.1). –
6Perhaps that <-syntax worked in 2009 but I've updated it (for 2013). –
5Even better, use jQuery's built-in : $("li:has(a.active)").css("property", "value");. It reads similarly to CSS 4's proposed ! selector. See also: , , . –
7And rather than using .css("property", "value") to style the selected elements, you should usually .addClass("someClass") and have in your CSS .someClass { property: value } (). That way, you can notate the style with the full power of CSS and any preprocessors you are using. –

1025

Yes:

Browser support: follow 3,80155 gold badges2626 silver badges5252 bronze badgesanswered Jan 20 '18 at 20:229,63888 gold badges4646 silver badges7171 bronze badges71

body:contains-selector(a.active) { background: red; }

Then the browser will have to wait until it has loaded and parsed everything until the </body> to determine if the page should be red or not.

The article explains it in detail. follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Jan 21 '14 at 8:43217k7676 gold badges379379 silver badges475475 bronze badges

12so make the browser faster. the internet itself faster. this selector is definitely needed, and the reason for not implementing it is, sadly, because we live in a slow, primitive world. –
11actually, the selector would make a very fast browser look slow. –
6I trust that browser developers would come up with an implementation which is (at least) as fast as the javascript version, which is the one people end up using anyway. –
"we live in a slow, primitive world" cough cough new apple watch cough cough –
@Marc.2377 If you try the above example in JS on your website, I'm never going to visit it. On the other side, I'd say that most of the time, you only care about immediate children, so if it was only limited to the immediate children, it'd be a good addition without too much impact. –

There isn't a way to do this in CSS 2. You could add the class to the li and reference the a:

li.active > a {
    property: value;
}

follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Jun 18 '09 at 20:065,80011 gold badge3131 silver badges5454 bronze badges

3by making the a element display:block you can style it to fit the whole of the li area. if you can explain what style you are looking for perhaps I could help with a solution. –
this is actually an simple and elegant solution and, in many cases, it makes sense to set the class on the parent. –

li {
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
}
a {
  display: block;
  width: 100%;
  color: ..., background: ..., border-radius: ..., etc...
}
a.active {
  color: ..., background: ...
}

follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Nov 23 '11 at 9:0337933 silver badges33 bronze badges30

The CSS selector “” could maybe used for what you want:

E ~ F {
    property: value;
}

This matches any F element that is preceded by an E element. follow ♦212k4040 gold badges437437 silver badges513513 bronze badgesanswered Jun 30 '11 at 14:0056544 silver badges22 bronze badges

25This is just sibling selector, it's not child, parent... not really answering the question mate –

Not in CSS 2 as far as I'm aware. CSS 3 has more robust selectors but is not consistently implemented across all browsers. Even with the improved selectors, I don't believe it will accomplish exactly what you've specified in your example. follow answered Jun 18 '09 at 20:0912.3k22 gold badges2323 silver badges2828 bronze badges24

$("ul:has(#someId)")

will select the ul element that has a child element with id someId. Or to answer the original question, something like the following should do the trick (untested):

$("li:has(.active)")

follow answered May 16 '13 at 22:0411.4k88 gold badges7777 silver badges100100 bronze badges

3Or use $yourSpan.closest("ul") and you'll get the parent UL of your span element. Nevertheless your answer is completely offtopic imho. We can answer all of the CSS-taged questions with a jQuery solution. –
1As identified in other answers, there is no way to do this using CSS 2. Given that constraint, the answer I provided is one I know is effective and is the simplest way to answer the question using javascript imho. –
Given your upvotes, some people agree with you. But the only answer remains the accepted one; plain and simple "it cant be done the way you want it". If the question is how to archieve 60mph on a bicycle and you answer it with "simple; get in a car and hit the gas.", it's still not an answer. Hence my comment. –
1That approach would make SO almost completely useless. I search SO for how to solve problems, not to find the "only answer" doesn't address the issue. That is why SO is so awesome, because there is always more than one way to skin a cat. –

The pseudo element :focus-within allows a parent to be selected if a descendent has focus.

An element can be focused if it has a tabindex attribute.

Example

.click {
  cursor: pointer;
}

.color:focus-within .change {
  color: red;
}

.color:focus-within p {
  outline: 0;
}

<div class="color">
  <p class="change" tabindex="0">
    I will change color
  </p>
  <p class="click" tabindex="1">
    Click me
  </p>
</div>

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follow 6,8343636 silver badges5050 bronze badgesanswered Sep 25 '17 at 13:5517.6k55 gold badges2525 silver badges3939 bronze badges

2This works fine in my case, thanks! Just a not, the example would be more ilustrative if you change the color to the parent, not to the sibling, this is replace .color:focus-within .change with .color:focus-within. In my case i'm using bootstrap nav-bar that add the class to the children when active and I want to add a class to the parent .nav-bar. I think this is a pretty common scenario where I own the markup but the component css+js is bootstrap (or other) so I cannot change the behavior. Although I can add tabindex and use this css. Thanks! –

For example:

body! a:hover{
   background: red;
}

will set a red background-color if the user hovers over any anchor.

But we have to wait for browsers' implementation :( follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered May 5 '15 at 18:242,7682727 silver badges2222 bronze badges21

You might try to use hyperlink as the parent, and then change the inner elements on hover. Like this:

a.active h1 {color:red;}

a.active:hover h1 {color:green;}

a.active h2 {color:blue;}

a.active:hover h1 {color:yellow;}

This way you can change the style in multiple inner tags, based on the rollover of the parent element. follow 18k1212 gold badges5959 silver badges7777 bronze badgesanswered Feb 13 '12 at 11:2249233 silver badges77 bronze badges

1That is correct, but limits the markup code within the a tag to certain elements only, if you want to conform to XHTML standards. For instance, you cannot use a div within a, without getting a warning of violating the schema. –
2Totaly right Ivaylo! "a" is a non-block element, so can't use block elements inside it. –
1In HTML5 it is perfectly fine to put block elements inside links. –
2... if it was semantically wrong, they wouldn't have allowed it in HTML5 where it wasn't before. –

There is a lot of technical explanation here.

But .

These people are all top class in the field of front end development. follow 2,24299 gold badges2727 silver badges3636 bronze badgesanswered Mar 21 '14 at 12:5850344 silver badges77 bronze badges

12The need is defined by web developers' requirements, whether to have it in the spec is decided by other factors. –

Just an idea for horizontal menu...

Part of HTML

<div class='list'>
  <div class='item'>
    <a>Link</a>
  </div>
  <div class='parent-background'></div>
  <!-- submenu takes this place -->
</div>

Part of CSS

/* Hide parent backgrounds... */
.parent-background {
  display: none; }

/* ... and show it when hover on children */
.item:hover + .parent-background {
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  z-index: 10;
  top: 0;
  width: 100%; }

how to use it with text-inputs - select parent fieldset follow ♦111 silver badgeanswered Oct 27 '15 at 17:5587277 silver badges1313 bronze badges

3It's not at all clear to me how you mean to generalize this to some/many/most of the parent selector use cases, or even exactly which parts of this CSS are doing what. Can you add a thorough explanation? –
2I did not try to apply this to real world scenarios, that is why I say "Not for production". But I think It can be applied to 2-level menu only with fixed item width. "which parts of this CSS are doing what" - .test-sibling here is actually background of parent item (the last line of CSS). –
2Added explanation (css section of jsfiddle, starting from "MAIN PART")... And I was mistaken - there may be any number of sublevels. –

141

Here's a hack using pointer-events with hover:

<!doctype html>
<html>
	<head>
		<title></title>
		<style>
/* accessory */
.parent {
	width: 200px;
	height: 200px;
	background: gray;
}
.parent, 
.selector {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: center;
	align-items: center;
}
.selector {
	cursor: pointer;
	background: silver;
	width: 50%;
	height: 50%;
}
		</style>
		<style>
/* pertinent */
.parent {
	background: gray;
	pointer-events: none;
}
.parent:hover {
	background: fuchsia;
}
.parent 
.selector {
	pointer-events: auto;
}
		</style>
	</head>
	<body>
		<div class="parent">
			<div class="selector"></div>
		</div>
	</body>
</html>

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follow answered Jul 31 '18 at 22:4794088 silver badges1414 bronze badges12

There's a plugin that extends CSS to include some non-standard features that can really help when designing websites. It's called .

One of the things EQCSS adds is a parent selector. It works in all browsers, Internet Explorer 8 and up. Here's the format:

@element 'a.active' {
  $parent {
    background: red;
  }
}

and , as well as .

EQCSS also includes : $prev for the element before a selected element and $this for only those elements that match an element query, and more. follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Apr 7 '16 at 17:5249111 gold badge77 silver badges1212 bronze badges11

It's now 2019, and the actually has something like this. Introducing @nest at-rules.

3.2. The Nesting At-Rule: @nest
While direct nesting looks nice, it is somewhat fragile. Some valid nesting selectors, like .foo &, are disallowed, and editing the selector in certain ways can make the rule invalid unexpectedly. As well, some people find the nesting challenging to distinguish visually from the surrounding declarations.
To aid in all these issues, this specification defines the @nest rule, which imposes fewer restrictions on how to validly nest style rules. Its syntax is:
@nest = @nest <selector> { <declaration-list> }
The @nest rule functions identically to a style rule: it starts with a selector, and contains declarations that apply to the elements the selector matches. The only difference is that the selector used in a @nest rule must be nest-containing, which means it contains a nesting selector in it somewhere. A list of selectors is nest-containing if all of its individual complex selectors are nest-containing.

(Copy and pasted from the URL above).

Example of valid selectors under this specification:

.foo {
  color: red;
  @nest & > .bar {
    color: blue;
  }
}
/* Equivalent to:
   .foo { color: red; }
   .foo > .bar { color: blue; }
 */

.foo {
  color: red;
  @nest .parent & {
    color: blue;
  }
}
/* Equivalent to:
   .foo { color: red; }
   .parent .foo { color: blue; }
 */

.foo {
  color: red;
  @nest :not(&) {
    color: blue;
  }
}
/* Equivalent to:
   .foo { color: red; }
   :not(.foo) { color: blue; }
 */

follow ♦111 silver badgeanswered Mar 19 '19 at 14:146,8343636 silver badges5050 bronze badges10

Technically there is no direct way to do this. However, you can sort that out with either jQuery or JavaScript.

However, you can do something like this as well.

a.active h1 {color: blue;}
a.active p {color: green;}

jQuery

$("a.active").parents('li').css("property", "value");

If you want to achieve this using jQuery here is the reference for the . follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Oct 14 '15 at 10:085,29011 gold badge3434 silver badges4242 bronze badges9

The W3C excluded such a selector because of the huge performance impact it would have on a browser. follow answered Aug 16 '11 at 4:431,04811 gold badge99 silver badges1212 bronze badges

27false. because the DOM is a tree, they have to go to the parent before getting to the child, so the simply just go back one node. o.o –
9CSS selectors are a so is evaluated rather than the document XPath or DOM hierarchy. –
3@rgb At least that's what they told us. –

var activeATag = Array.prototype.slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('a.active'));

activeATag.map(function(x) {
  if(x.parentNode.tagName === 'LI') {
    x.parentNode.style.color = 'red'; // Your property: value;
  }
});

Or a shorter way if you use jQuery in your application:

$('a.active').parents('li').css('color', 'red'); // Your property: value;

follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Jun 16 '17 at 18:0673.7k1818 gold badges223223 silver badges145145 bronze badges5

an immediate parent selector < (which enables the opposite selection to >)
an any ancestor selector ^ (which enables the opposite selection to [SPACE])

axe is presently in a relatively early BETA stage of development.

See a demo here:

(compare the two lists on the left styled with standard selectors and the two lists on the right styled with axe selectors) follow answered Feb 18 '17 at 17:0617.3k33 gold badges3838 silver badges5757 bronze badges

3The project is in an early Beta stage at present. You can (at least currently) activate axe selectors in your CSS styles by including <script src="https://rouninmedia.github.io/axe/axe.js"></script> at the very end of your html document, just before </body>. –

cells = document.querySelectorAll('div');
[].forEach.call(cells, function (el) {
    //console.log(el.nodeName)
    if (el.hasChildNodes() && el.firstChild.nodeName=="A") {
        console.log(el)
    };
});

<div>Peter</div>
<div><a href="#">Jackson link</a></div>
<div>Philip</div>
<div><a href="#">Pullman link</a></div>

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follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Feb 1 '18 at 14:1811.7k2525 gold badges9393 silver badges158158 bronze badges4

Any ideas?

/* Hide things that may be latter shown */
.menu__checkbox__selection,
.menu__checkbox__style,
.menu__hidden {
  display: none;
  visibility: hidden;
  opacity: 0;
  filter: alpha(opacity=0); /* Old Microsoft opacity */
}


/* Base style for content and style menu */
.main__content {
  background-color: lightgray;
  color: black;
}

.menu__hidden {
  background-color: black;
  color: lightgray;
  /* Make list look not so _listy_ */
  list-style: none;
  padding-left: 5px;
}

.menu__option {
  box-sizing: content-box;
  display: block;
  position: static;
  z-index: auto;
}

/* &#9660; - \u2630 - Three Bars */
/*
.menu__trigger__selection::before {
  content: '\2630';
  display: inline-block;
}
*/

/* &#9660; - Down Arrow */
.menu__trigger__selection::after {
  content: "\25BC";
  display: inline-block;
  transform: rotate(90deg);
}


/* Customize to look more `select` like if you like */
.menu__trigger__style:hover,
.menu__trigger__style:active {
  cursor: pointer;
  background-color: darkgray;
  color: white;
}


/**
 * Things to do when checkboxes/radios are checked
 */

.menu__checkbox__selection:checked + .menu__trigger__selection::after,
.menu__checkbox__selection[checked] + .menu__trigger__selection::after {
  transform: rotate(0deg);
}

/* This bit is something that you may see elsewhere */
.menu__checkbox__selection:checked ~ .menu__hidden,
.menu__checkbox__selection[checked] ~ .menu__hidden {
  display: block;
  visibility: visible;
  opacity: 1;
  filter: alpha(opacity=100); /* Microsoft!? */
}


/**
 * Hacky CSS only changes based off non-inline checkboxes
 * ... AKA the stuff you cannot unsee after this...
 */
.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-default"]:checked ~ .main__content {
  background-color: lightgray;
  color: black;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-default"]:checked ~ .main__content .menu__trigger__style[for="style-default"] {
  color: darkorange;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-one"]:checked ~ .main__content {
  background-color: black;
  color: lightgray;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-one"]:checked ~ .main__content .menu__trigger__style[for="style-one"] {
  color: darkorange;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-two"]:checked ~ .main__content {
  background-color: darkgreen;
  color: red;
}

.menu__checkbox__style[id="style-two"]:checked ~ .main__content .menu__trigger__style[for="style-two"] {
  color: darkorange;
}

<!--
  This bit works, but will one day cause troubles,
  but truth is you can stick checkbox/radio inputs
  just about anywhere and then call them by id with
  a `for` label. Keep scrolling to see what I mean
-->
<input type="radio"
       name="colorize"
       class="menu__checkbox__style"
       id="style-default">
<input type="radio"
       name="colorize"
       class="menu__checkbox__style"
       id="style-one">
<input type="radio"
       name="colorize"
       class="menu__checkbox__style"
       id="style-two">


<div class="main__content">

  <p class="paragraph__split">
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
    tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,
    quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
  </p>

  <input type="checkbox"
         class="menu__checkbox__selection"
         id="trigger-style-menu">
  <label for="trigger-style-menu"
         class="menu__trigger__selection"> Theme</label>

  <ul class="menu__hidden">
    <li class="menu__option">
      <label for="style-default"
             class="menu__trigger__style">Default Style</label>
    </li>

    <li class="menu__option">
      <label for="style-one"
             class="menu__trigger__style">First Alternative Style</label>
    </li>

    <li class="menu__option">
      <label for="style-two"
             class="menu__trigger__style">Second Alternative Style</label>
    </li>
  </ul>

  <p class="paragraph__split">
    consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse
    cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non
    proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
  </p>

</div>

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One additional caveat is that only one input of a specific id maybe used, first checkbox/radio wins a toggled state in other words... But multiple labels can all point to the same input, though that would make both the HTML and CSS look even grosser.
... I'm hoping that there is some sort of workaround that exists native to CSS Level 2...

I am not sure about the other : selectors, but I :checked for pre-CSS 3. If I remember correctly, it was something like [checked] which is why you may find it in the above code, for example,

.menu__checkbox__selection:checked ~ .menu__hidden,
.menu__checkbox__selection[checked] ~ .menu__hidden {
 /* rules: and-stuff; */
}

... but for things like ::after and :hover, I'm not at all certain in which CSS version those first appeared.

That all stated, please don't ever use this in production, not even in anger. As a joke sure, or in other words just because something can be done does not always mean it should. follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Jun 8 '19 at 6:3157111 gold badge44 silver badges1111 bronze badges3

No, you cannot select the parent in CSS only.

But as you already seem to have an .active class, it would be easier to move that class to the li (instead of the a). That way you can access both the li and the a via CSS only. follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Nov 27 '15 at 21:168,34055 gold badges2323 silver badges5757 bronze badges1

Following example will help you understand using :focus-within in CSS.

.outer-div {
  width: 400px;
  height: 400px;
  padding: 50px;
  float: left
}

.outer-div:focus-within {
  background: red;
}

.inner-div {
  width: 200px;
  height: 200px;
  float: left;
  background: yellow;
  padding: 50px;
}

<div class="outer-div">
  <div class="inner-div">
    I want to change outer-div(Background color) class based on inner-div. Is it possible?
    <input type="text" placeholder="Name" />
  </div>
</div>

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follow 74566 silver badges2222 bronze badgesanswered Jul 5 '19 at 6:3452033 silver badges1313 bronze badges1

It's possible with ampersand in :

h3
  font-size: 20px
  margin-bottom: 10px
  .some-parent-selector &
    font-size: 24px
    margin-bottom: 20px

CSS output:

h3 {
  font-size: 20px;
  margin-bottom: 10px;
}
.some-parent-selector h3 {
  font-size: 24px;
  margin-bottom: 20px;
}

follow 26.2k2121 gold badges9090 silver badges120120 bronze badgesanswered Aug 3 '17 at 18:193,87922 gold badges2828 silver badges2626 bronze badges

2it's true, but only if you know the selector in advance. –
11This does not select h3's parent, which was the goal. This would select h3s which are descendants of .some-parent-selector. –

I'd hire some JavaScript code to do that. For example, in React when you iterate over an array, add another class to the parent component, which indicates it contains your children:

<div className={`parent ${hasKiddos ? 'has-kiddos' : ''}`}>
    {kiddos.map(kid => <div key={kid.id} />)}
</div>

And then simply:

.parent {
    color: #000;
}

.parent.has-kiddos {
    color: red;
}

follow answered Jun 13 '19 at 8:2587422 gold badges1010 silver badges2222 bronze badges0

There no css (and therefore in css preprocessors) parent selector due to "The major reasons for the CSS Working Group previously rejecting proposals for parent selectors are related to browser performance and incremental rendering issues." follow

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