The insider's guide to understanding the inner workings of the :nth-child() property

I am finding the :nth-child() property to be a bit confusing. Sometimes it takes arguments like :nth-child(2),:nth-child(2n),:nth-child(2n + 1). I'm not sure what these mean exactly - are they referring to even or odd divs, or is there another property at play here?

Answer №1

A quote from the source below

Explaining the concept of using a formula (an + b): where a represents cycle size, n is a counter starting at 0, and b is an offset value.

An example is given to specify a background color for every third p element:

p:nth-child(3n+0) { background: #ff0000; }

In summary, you can utilize the number :nth-child(n) to target the nth child of an element.

You also have the option of using :nth-child(odd/even) to select alternating children.

Lastly, you can apply the formula mentioned in the quote. By using 3n, you can select every child with an index of 3 (the second child), while 5n will target the child with an index of 5 (the fourth child), and so forth. Adding a value after the plus sign acts as an offset - selecting elements either before or after it.

For instance:

:nth-child(5n+2) - This will choose every element two positions ahead of each 5th element:

  • 5 + 2 = Index of 7, representing the 6th element
  • 10 + 2 = Index of 12, representing the 11th element
  • 15 + 2 = Index of 17, representing the 16th element
  • 20 + 2 = Index of 22, representing the 21st element

W3Schools - :nth-child()

Answer №2

The :nth-child() function can take odd/even or an expression as a parameter, where the most basic expression is just a simple number.

For in-depth information about how :nth-child works, check out this article on CSS-tricks.com: https://css-tricks.com/how-nth-child-works/

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