Is there a CSS parent selector?

Question

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?

Answer 1

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:

• Selectors Level 3 Spec
• CSS 2.1 Selectors Spec

That said, the Selectors Level 4 Working Draft includes a :has() pseudo-class that will provide this capability. It will be similar to the jQuery implementation.

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

However, as of 2021, this is still not supported by any browser.

In the meantime, you'll have to resort to JavaScript if you need to select a parent element.