CSS Attribute Selectors

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Style HTML Elements With Specific Attributes

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

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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, whose value can be exactly the specified value, or the specified value followed by a hyphen (-).

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

Example

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

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CSS [attribute^=”value”] Selector

The [attribute^="value"] selector is used to select elements with the specified attribute, whose value starts with the specified value.

The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that starts with “top”:

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

Example

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

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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

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

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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

[class*=”te”] {
background: yellow;
}

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Styling Forms

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

Example

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

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

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Tip: Visit our CSS Forms Tutorial for more examples on how to style forms with CSS.

Test Yourself With Exercises

Exercise:

Set the background color to “red” for <a> elements that have a target attribute.

<style>
 {
  background-color: red;
}
</style>

<body>
  <a href="https://w3schools.com">w3schools.com</a>
  <a href="http://disney.com" target="_blank">Disney.com</a>
  <a href="http://wikipedia.org" target="_top">wikipedia.org</a>
</body>

Submit Answer »

Start the Exercise

All CSS Attribute Selectors

Selector	Example	Example description
[attribute]	[target]	Selects all elements with a target attribute
[attribute=value]	[target=_blank]	Selects all elements with target=”_blank”
[attribute~=value]	[title~=flower]	Selects all elements with a title attribute containing the word “flower”
[attribute\|=value]	[lang\|=en]	Selects all elements with a lang attribute value starting with “en”
[attribute^=value]	a[href^=”https”]	Selects every <a> element whose href attribute value begins with “https”
[attribute$=value]	a[href$=”.pdf”]	Selects every <a> element whose href attribute value ends with “.pdf”
[attribute=value*]	a[href*=”w3schools”]	Selects every <a> element whose href attribute value contains the substring “w3schools”

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