Column combinator

The column combinator (||) is placed between two CSS selectors. It matches only those elements matched by the second selector that belong to the column elements matched by the first.

/* Table cells that belong to the "selected" column */
col.selected || td {
  background: gray;
}

Syntax

<complex-selector> || <complex-selector> {
  /* style properties */
}

where
<complex-selector> = <compound-selector> [ <combinator>? <compound-selector> ]*

where
<combinator> = '>' | '+' | '~' | [ '||' ]
<compound-selector> = [ <type-selector>? <subclass-selector>* [ <pseudo-element-selector> <pseudo-class-selector>* ]* ]!

where
<type-selector> = <wq-name> | <ns-prefix>? '*'
<subclass-selector> = <id-selector> | <class-selector> | <attribute-selector> | <pseudo-class-selector>
<pseudo-element-selector> = ':' <pseudo-class-selector>
<pseudo-class-selector> = ':' <ident-token> | ':' <function-token> <any-value> ')'

where
<wq-name> = <ns-prefix>? <ident-token>
<ns-prefix> = [ <ident-token> | '*' ]?  | 
<id-selector> = <hash-token>
<class-selector> = '.' <ident-token>
<attribute-selector> = '[' <wq-name> ']' | '[' <wq-name> <attr-matcher> [ <string-token> | <ident-token> ] <attr-modifier>? ']'

where
<attr-matcher> = [ '~' | '|' | '^' | '$' | '*' ]? '='
<attr-modifier> = i

Examples

HTML

<table border="1">
  <colgroup>
    <col span="2"/>
    <col class="selected"/>
  </colgroup>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>A
      <td>B
      <td>C
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2">D</td>
      <td>E</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>F</td>
      <td colspan="2">G</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

CSS

col.selected || td {
  background: gray;
  color: white;
  font-weight: bold;
}

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

No compatibility data found. Please contribute data for "css.selectors.column" (depth: 1) to the MDN compatibility data repository.

See also

• <col>
• <colgroup>
• grid