Selector list

The CSS selector list (,) selects all the matching nodes.

/* Selects all matching elements */
span,
div {
  border: red 2px solid;
}

To reduce the size of style sheets, one can group selectors in comma-separated lists.

Syntax

element, element, element { style properties }

Examples

Single Line Grouping

Grouping selectors in a single line using a comma-separated lists.

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { font-family: helvetica; }

Multi Line Grouping

Grouping selectors in a multiple lines using a comma-separated lists.

#main,
.content,
article {
  font-size: 1.1em;
}

Selector list invalidation

A downside to using selector lists is that the following aren't equivalent:

h1 { font-family: sans-serif }
h2:maybe-unsupported { font-family: sans-serif }
h3 { font-family: sans-serif }

h1, h2:maybe-unsupported, h3 { font-family: sans-serif }

This is because a single unsupported selector in a selector list invalidates the whole rule.

A way to remedy this us to use the :is() selector, which simply ignores invalid selectors in its arguments, but at the cost of all selectors having the same specificity, because of how :is() calculates specificity.

h1 { font-family: sans-serif }
h2:maybe-unsupported { font-family: sans-serif }
h3 { font-family: sans-serif }

:is(h1, h2:maybe-unsupported, h3) { font-family: sans-serif }

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• The :is() and :where() pseudo-classes, which don't have the legacy mistake that is selector list invalidation.