Question

In css, I have seen both div.selector and selector being used to define styling rules for a specific selector.

What’s the difference between the two and what are the reasons I should consider when adopting one over the other when writing my own css files?

Answer 1

• div.selector targets only div elements with a class of selector.
• .selector targets ALL elements with a class of .selector not just DIVs

So prefix element with tag name if you KNOW that’s the one you will be applying css to. The later approach is more generic and targets all elements with specified class. However, you should be specific whenever you can.

If you know only div elements will have .selector class, going specific is better in terms of performance eg div.selector rather than .selector which will look for all elements on the page but will eventually apply those styles to DIVs only.