How can the parent div's height be determined by the child div when using position: absolute?

I am struggling with setting the height of a parent div that contains a nested child div with absolute positioning. The child div has a fixed height of 652px, but I cannot seem to get the parent div to match this height. I have tried adjusting the clear and overflow properties without success.

Below is the code snippet:

HTML

<div class="content">
    <div class="container">
        some other elements whose height is 652px... 
    </div>
</div>

CSS

.content {
    position: relative;
}

.container {
    position: absolute;
    width: 100%;
    max-width: 1160px;
    margin: 0 auto;
    padding: 120px 0;
}

The content div's height remains at 0 while the container div's height is set to 652px. How can I make the content div's height equal to that of the container div?

htmlcsspositionheightabsolute

Answer №1

It doesn't seem like CSS can achieve this while maintaining the children as absolutely positioned.

Absolutely positioned elements are taken out of the normal document flow, so they don't affect the dimensions of their parent elements.

If you really need to achieve this effect with absolutely positioned children, you could use JavaScript to find the height of these elements after they are displayed and then set the parent's height accordingly.

var content=document.querySelector('.content');
var container=document.querySelector('.container');

content.style.height=container.offsetHeight + 'px';
*{box-sizing:border-box;}

.content {
  width: 100%;
  max-width: 1160px;
  margin: 0 auto;
  /*padding: 120px 0;*//*Padding removed for example*/
   border:5px solid green;
}
.container{
  position: absolute;
  overflow: hidden;
  width: 100%;
  border:2px solid red;
  height:652px;
}
<div class="content">
  <div class="container">
    some other elements whose height is 652px...
  </div>
</div>

Answer №2

It is important to ensure that your code is valid before posting a question. The syntax errors in both the html and css need to be addressed, including missing brackets, colons, and semicolons in the CSS, as well as using class instead of className in HTML.

Once these issues are fixed, your code should function correctly. When an absolute parent element contains children with specific dimensions, it will adjust its size accordingly. However, if you apply overflow: hidden;, as you have done, and set fixed width or height (which you haven't), any content outside those dimensions will be hidden by the absolute element.

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