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8.2 CSS Attribute Selectors

It is possible to style HTML elements that have specific attributes or attribute values.

CSS [attribute] Selector

The [attribute] selector is used to select elements with a specified attribute. The following example selects all <a> elements with a target attribute:

Example 1: [attribute] selector

a[target] {
  background-color: yellow;
}

CSS [attribute="value"] Selector

The [attribute="value"] selector is used to select elements with a specified attribute and value. The following example selects all <a> elements with a target="_blank" attribute:

Example 2: CSS [attribute="value"] Selector

a[target="_blank"] {
  background-color: yellow;
}

CSS [attribute~="value"] Selector

The [attribute~="value"] selector is used to select elements with an attribute value containing a specified word. The following example selects all elements with a title attribute that contains a space-separated list of words, one of which is "flower":

Example 3: [attribute~="value"] selector

[title~="flower"] {
  border: 5px solid yellow;
}

The example above will match elements with title="flower", title="summer flower", and title="flower new", but not title="my-flower" or title="flowers".

CSS [attribute |="value"] Selector

The [attribute|="value"] selector is used to select elements with the specified attribute starting with the specified value. The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that begins with "top":

Note: The value has to be a whole word, either alone, like class="top", or followed by a hyphen( - ), like class="top-text"!

Example 4: [attribute |="value"] selector

[class|="top"] {
  background: yellow;
}

CSS [attribute^="value"] Selector

The [attribute^="value"] selector is used to select elements whose attribute value begins with a specified value. The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that begins with "top":

Note: The value does not have to be a whole word!

Example 5: [attribute^="value"]

[class^="top"] {
  background: yellow;
}

CSS [attribute$="value"] Selector

The [attribute$="value"]> selector is used to select elements whose attribute value ends with a specified value. The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that ends with "test":

Note: The value does not have to be a whole word!

Example 6: [attribute$="value"] selector

[class$="test"] {
  background: yellow;
}

CSS [attribute*="value"] Selector

The [attribute*="value"] selector is used to select elements whose attribute value contains a specified value. The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that contains "te":

Note: The value does not have to be a whole word!

Example 7: [attribute*="value"] selector

[class*="te"] {
  background: salmon;
}

Styling Forms

The attribute selectors can be useful for styling forms without class or ID:

Example 8: styling forms

input[type="text"] {
  width: 150px;
  display: block;
  margin-bottom: 10px;
  background-color: yellow;
}

input[type="button"] {
  width: 120px;
  margin-left: 35px;
  display: block;
}

All CSS Attribute Selectors