CSS Object Model (CSSOM)

W3C Working Draft,

This version:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/WD-cssom-1-20210826/
Latest published version:
https://www.w3.org/TR/cssom-1/
Editor's Draft:
https://drafts.csswg.org/cssom/
Previous Versions:
Test Suite:
http://test.csswg.org/suites/cssom-1_dev/nightly-unstable
Issue Tracking:
CSSWG Issues Repository
Inline In Spec
Editors:
(Disruptive Innovations)
(Mozilla)
Former Editors:
(Opera Software AS)
Glenn Adams (Cox Communications, Inc.)
Anne van Kesteren (Opera Software ASA)
Suggest an Edit for this Spec:
GitHub Editor
Legacy issues list:
Bugzilla

Abstract

CSSOM defines APIs (including generic parsing and serialization rules) for Media Queries, Selectors, and of course CSS itself.

CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, etc.

Status of this document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.

This document was published by the CSS Working Group as a Working Draft. Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership.

This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

Please send feedback by filing issues in GitHub (preferred), including the spec code “cssom” in the title, like this: “[cssom] …summary of comment…”. All issues and comments are archived. Alternately, feedback can be sent to the (archived) public mailing list www-style@w3.org.

This document is governed by the 15 September 2020 W3C Process Document.

This document was produced by a group operating under the W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

1. Introduction

This document formally specifies the core features of the CSS Object Model (CSSOM). Other documents in the CSSOM family of specifications as well as other CSS related specifications define extensions to these core features.

The core features of the CSSOM are oriented towards providing basic capabilities to author-defined scripts to permit access to and manipulation of style related state information and processes.

The features defined below are fundamentally based on prior specifications of the W3C DOM Working Group, primarily [DOM]. The purposes of the present document are (1) to improve on that prior work by providing more technical specificity (so as to improve testability and interoperability), (2) to deprecate or remove certain less-widely implemented features no longer considered to be essential in this context, and (3) to newly specify certain extensions that have been or expected to be widely implemented.

2. Terminology

This specification employs certain terminology from the following documents: DOM, HTML, CSS Syntax, Encoding, URL, Fetch, Associating Style Sheets with XML documents and XML. [DOM] [HTML] [CSS3SYN] [ENCODING] [URL] [FETCH] [XML-STYLESHEET] [XML]

When this specification talks about object A where A is actually an interface, it generally means an object implementing interface A.

The terms set and unset to refer to the true and false values of binary flags or variables, respectively. These terms are also used as verbs in which case they refer to mutating some value to make it true or false, respectively.

The term supported styling language refers to CSS.

Note: If another styling language becomes supported in user agents, this specification is expected to be updated as necessary.

The term supported CSS property refers to a CSS property that the user agent implements, including any vendor-prefixed properties, but excluding custom properties. A supported CSS property must be in its lowercase form for the purpose of comparisons in this specification.

In this specification the ::before and ::after pseudo-elements are assumed to exist for all elements even if no box is generated for them.

When a method or an attribute is said to call another method or attribute, the user agent must invoke its internal API for that attribute or method so that e.g. the author can’t change the behavior by overriding attributes or methods with custom properties or functions in ECMAScript.

Unless otherwise stated, string comparisons are done in a case-sensitive manner.

2.1. Common Serializing Idioms

To escape a character means to create a string of "\" (U+005C), followed by the character.

To escape a character as code point means to create a string of "\" (U+005C), followed by the Unicode code point as the smallest possible number of hexadecimal digits in the range 0-9 a-f (U+0030 to U+0039 and U+0061 to U+0066) to represent the code point in base 16, followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).

To serialize an identifier means to create a string represented by the concatenation of, for each character of the identifier:

To serialize a string means to create a string represented by '"' (U+0022), followed by the result of applying the rules below to each character of the given string, followed by '"' (U+0022):

Note: "'" (U+0027) is not escaped because strings are always serialized with '"' (U+0022).

To serialize a URL means to create a string represented by "url(", followed by the serialization of the URL as a string, followed by ")".

To serialize a LOCAL means to create a string represented by "local(", followed by the serialization of the LOCAL as a string, followed by ")".

To serialize a comma-separated list concatenate all items of the list in list order while separating them by ", ", i.e., COMMA (U+002C) followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).

To serialize a whitespace-separated list concatenate all items of the list in list order while separating them by " ", i.e., a single SPACE (U+0020).

Note: When serializing a list according to the above rules, extraneous whitespace is not inserted prior to the first item or subsequent to the last item. Unless otherwise specified, an empty list is serialized as the empty string.

3. CSSOMString

Most strings in CSSOM interfaces use the CSSOMString type. Each implementation chooses to define it as either USVString or DOMString:

typedef USVString CSSOMString;

Or, alternatively:

typedef DOMString CSSOMString;
The difference is only observable from web content when surrogate code units are involved. DOMString would preserve them, whereas USVString would replace them with U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER.

This choice effectively allows implementations to do this replacement, but does not require it.

Using USVString enables an implementation to use UTF-8 internally to represent strings in memory. Since well-formed UTF-8 specifically disallows surrogate code points, it effectively requires this replacement.

On the other hand, implementations that internally represent strings as 16-bit code units might prefer to avoid the cost of doing this replacement.

4. Media Queries

Media queries are defined by [MEDIAQUERIES]. This section defines various concepts around media queries, including their API and serialization form.

4.1. Parsing Media Queries

To parse a media query list for a given string s into a media query list is defined in the Media Queries specification. Return the list of media queries that the algorithm defined there gives.

Note: A media query that ends up being "ignored" will turn into "not all".

To parse a media query for a given string s means to follow the parse a media query list steps and return null if more than one media query is returned or a media query if a single media query is returned.

Note: Again, a media query that ends up being "ignored" will turn into "not all".

4.2. Serializing Media Queries

To serialize a media query list run these steps:

  1. If the media query list is empty, then return the empty string.
  2. Serialize each media query in the list of media queries, in the same order as they appear in the media query list, and then serialize the list.

To serialize a media query let s be the empty string, run the steps below:

  1. If the media query is negated append "not", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), to s.
  2. Let type be the serialization as an identifier of the media type of the media query, converted to ASCII lowercase.
  3. If the media query does not contain media features append type, to s, then return s.
  4. If type is not "all" or if the media query is negated append type, followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by "and", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), to s.
  5. Then, for each media feature:
    1. Append a "(" (U+0028), followed by the media feature name, converted to ASCII lowercase, to s.
    2. If a value is given append a ":" (U+003A), followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the serialized media feature value, to s.
    3. Append a ")" (U+0029) to s.
    4. If this is not the last media feature append a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by "and", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), to s.
  6. Return s.
Here are some examples of input (first column) and output (second column):
Input Output
not screen and (min-WIDTH:5px) AND (max-width:40px)
not screen and (min-width: 5px) and (max-width: 40px)
all and (color) and (color)
(color) and (color)

4.2.1. Serializing Media Feature Values

This should probably be done in terms of mapping it to serializing CSS values as media features are defined in terms of CSS values after all.

To serialize a media feature value named v locate v in the first column of the table below and use the serialization format described in the second column:

Media Feature Serialization
width ...
height ...
device-width ...
device-height ...
orientation If the value is portrait: "portrait". If the value is landscape: "landscape".
aspect-ratio ...
device-aspect-ratio ...
color ...
color-index ...
monochrome ...
resolution ...
scan If the value is progressive: "progressive". If the value is interlace: "interlace".
grid ...

Other specifications can extend this table and vendor-prefixed media features can have custom serialization formats as well.

4.3. Comparing Media Queries

To compare media queries m1 and m2 means to serialize them both and return true if they are a case-sensitive match and false if they are not.

4.4. The MediaList Interface

An object that implements the MediaList interface has an associated collection of media queries.

[Exposed=Window]
interface MediaList {
  stringifier attribute [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString mediaText;
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
  getter CSSOMString? item(unsigned long index);
  undefined appendMedium(CSSOMString medium);
  undefined deleteMedium(CSSOMString medium);
};

The object’s supported property indices are the numbers in the range zero to one less than the number of media queries in the collection of media queries represented by the collection. If there are no such media queries, then there are no supported property indices.

To create a MediaList object with a string text, run the following steps:

  1. Create a new MediaList object.
  2. Set its mediaText attribute to text.
  3. Return the newly created MediaList object.

The mediaText attribute, on getting, must return a serialization of the collection of media queries. Setting the mediaText attribute must run these steps:

  1. Empty the collection of media queries.
  2. If the given value is the empty string, then return.
  3. Append all the media queries as a result of parsing the given value to the collection of media queries.

The item(index) method must return a serialization of the media query in the collection of media queries given by index, or null, if index is greater than or equal to the number of media queries in the collection of media queries.

The length attribute must return the number of media queries in the collection of media queries.

The appendMedium(medium) method must run these steps:

  1. Let m be the result of parsing the given value.
  2. If m is null, then return.
  3. If comparing m with any of the media queries in the collection of media queries returns true, then return.
  4. Append m to the collection of media queries.

The deleteMedium(medium) method must run these steps:

  1. Let m be the result of parsing the given value.
  2. If m is null, then return.
  3. Remove any media query from the collection of media queries for which comparing the media query with m returns true. If nothing was removed, then throw a NotFoundError exception.

5. Selectors

Selectors are defined in the Selectors specification. This section mainly defines how to serialize them.

5.1. Parsing Selectors

To parse a group of selectors means to parse the value using the selectors_group production defined in the Selectors specification and return either a group of selectors if parsing did not fail or null if parsing did fail.

5.2. Serializing Selectors

To serialize a group of selectors serialize each selector in the group of selectors and then serialize a comma-separated list of these serializations.

To serialize a selector let s be the empty string, run the steps below for each part of the chain of the selector, and finally return s:

  1. If there is only one simple selector in the compound selectors which is a universal selector, append the result of serializing the universal selector to s.
  2. Otherwise, for each simple selector in the compound selectors that is not a universal selector of which the namespace prefix maps to a namespace that is not the default namespace serialize the simple selector and append the result to s.
  3. If this is not the last part of the chain of the selector append a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the combinator ">", "+", "~", ">>", "||", as appropriate, followed by another single SPACE (U+0020) if the combinator was not whitespace, to s.
  4. If this is the last part of the chain of the selector and there is a pseudo-element, append "::" followed by the name of the pseudo-element, to s.

To serialize a simple selector let s be the empty string, run the steps below, and finally return s:

type selector
universal selector
  1. If the namespace prefix maps to a namespace that is not the default namespace and is not the null namespace (not in a namespace) append the serialization of the namespace prefix as an identifier, followed by a "|" (U+007C) to s.
  2. If the namespace prefix maps to a namespace that is the null namespace (not in a namespace) append "|" (U+007C) to s.
  3. If this is a type selector append the serialization of the element name as an identifier to s.
  4. If this is a universal selector append "*" (U+002A) to s.
attribute selector
  1. Append "[" (U+005B) to s.
  2. If the namespace prefix maps to a namespace that is not the null namespace (not in a namespace) append the serialization of the namespace prefix as an identifier, followed by a "|" (U+007C) to s.
  3. Append the serialization of the attribute name as an identifier to s.
  4. If there is an attribute value specified, append "=", "~=", "|=", "^=", "$=", or "*=" as appropriate (depending on the type of attribute selector), followed by the serialization of the attribute value as a string, to s.
  5. If the attribute selector has the case-sensitivity flag present, append " i" (U+0020 U+0069) to s.
  6. Append "]" (U+005D) to s.
class selector
Append a "." (U+002E), followed by the serialization of the class name as an identifier to s.
ID selector
Append a "#" (U+0023), followed by the serialization of the ID as an identifier to s.
pseudo-class
If the pseudo-class does not accept arguments append ":" (U+003A), followed by the name of the pseudo-class, to s.

Otherwise, append ":" (U+003A), followed by the name of the pseudo-class, followed by "(" (U+0028), followed by the value of the pseudo-class argument(s) determined as per below, followed by ")" (U+0029), to s.

:lang()
The serialization of a comma-separated list of each argument’s serialization as a string, preserving relative order.
:nth-child()
:nth-last-child()
:nth-of-type()
:nth-last-of-type()
The result of serializing the value using the rules to serialize an <an+b> value.
:not()
The result of serializing the value using the rules for serializing a group of selectors.

6. CSS

6.1. CSS Style Sheets

A CSS style sheet is an abstract concept that represents a style sheet as defined by the CSS specification. In the CSSOM a CSS style sheet is represented as a CSSStyleSheet object.

CSSStyleSheet(options)
When called, execute the steps to create a constructed CSSStyleSheet given options and return the result.
To create a constructed CSSStyleSheet given CSSStyleSheetInit options, run these steps:
  1. Construct a new CSSStyleSheet object sheet.
  2. Set sheet’s location to the base URL of the associated Document for the current global object.
  3. Set sheet’s stylesheet base URL to the baseURL attribute value from options.
  4. Set sheet’s parent CSS style sheet to null.
  5. Set sheet’s owner node to null.
  6. Set sheet’s owner CSS rule to null.
  7. Set sheet’s title to the the empty string.
  8. Unset sheet’s alternate flag.
  9. Set sheet’s origin-clean flag.
  10. Set sheet’s constructed flag.
  11. Set sheet’s Constructor document to the associated Document for the current global object.
  12. If the media attribute of options is a string, create a MediaList object from the string and assign it as sheet’s media. Otherwise, serialize a media query list from the attribute and then create a MediaList object from the resulting string and set it as sheet’s media.
  13. If the disabled attribute of options is true, set sheet’s disabled flag.
  14. Return sheet.

A CSS style sheet has a number of associated state items:

type
The literal string "text/css".
location
Specified when created. The absolute-URL string of the first request of the CSS style sheet or null if the CSS style sheet was embedded. Does not change during the lifetime of the CSS style sheet.
parent CSS style sheet
Specified when created. The CSS style sheet that is the parent of the CSS style sheet or null if there is no associated parent.
owner node
Specified when created. The DOM node associated with the CSS style sheet or null if there is no associated DOM node.
owner CSS rule
Specified when created. The CSS rule in the parent CSS style sheet that caused the inclusion of the CSS style sheet or null if there is no associated rule.
media
Specified when created. The MediaList object associated with the CSS style sheet.

If this property is specified to a string, the media must be set to the return value of invoking create a MediaList object steps for that string.

If this property is specified to an attribute of the owner node, the media must be set to the return value of invoking create a MediaList object steps for the value of that attribute. Whenever the attribute is set, changed or removed, the media’s mediaText attribute must be set to the new value of the attribute, or to null if the attribute is absent.

Note: Changing the media’s mediaText attribute does not change the corresponding attribute on the owner node.

Note: The owner node of a CSS style sheet, if non-null, is the node whose associated CSS style sheet is the CSS style sheet in question, when the CSS style sheet is added.

title
Specified when created. The title of the CSS style sheet, which can be the empty string.
In the following, the title is non-empty for the first style sheet, but is empty for the second and third style sheets.
<style title="papaya whip">
  body { background: #ffefd5; }
</style>
<style title="">
  body { background: orange; }
</style>
<style>
  body { background: brown; }
</style>

If this property is specified to an attribute of the owner node, the title must be set to the value of that attribute. Whenever the attribute is set, changed or removed, the title must be set to the new value of the attribute, or to the empty string if the attribute is absent.

Note: HTML only specifies title to be an attribute of the owner node if the node is in in a document tree.

alternate flag
Specified when created. Either set or unset. Unset by default.
The following CSS style sheets have their alternate flag set:
<?xml-stylesheet alternate="yes" title="x" href="data:text/css,…"?>
<link rel="alternate stylesheet" title="x" href="data:text/css,…">
disabled flag
Either set or unset. Unset by default.

Note: Even when unset it does not necessarily mean that the CSS style sheet is actually used for rendering.

CSS rules
The CSS rules associated with the CSS style sheet.
origin-clean flag
Specified when created. Either set or unset. If it is set, the API allows reading and modifying of the CSS rules.
constructed flag
Specified when created. Either set or unset. Unset by default. Signifies whether this stylesheet was created by invoking the IDL-defined constructor.
disallow modification flag
Either set or unset. Unset by default. If set, modification of the stylesheet’s rules is not allowed.
constructor document
Specified when created. The Document a constructed stylesheet is associated with. Null by default. Only non-null for stylesheets that have constructed flag set.
stylesheet base URL
The base URL to use when resolving relative URLs in the stylesheet. Null by default. Only non-null for stylesheets that have constructed flag set.

6.1.1. The StyleSheet Interface

The StyleSheet interface represents an abstract, base style sheet.

[Exposed=Window]
interface StyleSheet {
  readonly attribute CSSOMString type;
  readonly attribute USVString? href;
  readonly attribute (Element or ProcessingInstruction)? ownerNode;
  readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet? parentStyleSheet;
  readonly attribute DOMString? title;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=mediaText] readonly attribute MediaList media;
  attribute boolean disabled;
};

The type attribute must return the type.

The href attribute must return the location.

The ownerNode attribute must return the owner node.

The parentStyleSheet attribute must return the parent CSS style sheet.

The title attribute must return the title or null if title is the empty string.

The media attribute must return the media.

The disabled attribute, on getting, must return true if the disabled flag is set, or false otherwise. On setting, the disabled attribute must set the disabled flag if the new value is true, or unset the disabled flag otherwise.

6.1.2. The CSSStyleSheet Interface

The CSSStyleSheet interface represents a CSS style sheet.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSStyleSheet : StyleSheet {
  constructor(optional CSSStyleSheetInit options = {});

  readonly attribute CSSRule? ownerRule;
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSRuleList cssRules;
  unsigned long insertRule(CSSOMString rule, optional unsigned long index = 0);
  undefined deleteRule(unsigned long index);

  Promise<CSSStyleSheet> replace(USVString text);
  undefined replaceSync(USVString text);
};

dictionary CSSStyleSheetInit {
  DOMString baseURL = null;
  (MediaList or DOMString) media = "";
  boolean disabled = false;
};

The ownerRule attribute must return the owner CSS rule. If a value other than null is ever returned, then that same value must always be returned on each get access.

The cssRules attribute must follow these steps:

  1. If the origin-clean flag is unset, throw a SecurityError exception.
  2. Return a read-only, live CSSRuleList object representing the CSS rules.

    Note: Even though the returned CSSRuleList object is read-only (from the perspective of client-authored script), it can nevertheless change over time due to its liveness status. For example, invoking the insertRule() or deleteRule() methods can result in mutations reflected in the returned object.

The insertRule(rule, index) method must run the following steps:

  1. If the origin-clean flag is unset, throw a SecurityError exception.
  2. If the disallow modification flag is set, throw a NotAllowedError DOMException.
  3. Let parsed rule be the return value of invoking parse a rule with rule.
  4. If parsed rule is a syntax error, return parsed rule.
  5. If parsed rule is an @import rule, and the constructed flag is set, throw a SyntaxError DOMException.
  6. Return the result of invoking insert a CSS rule rule in the CSS rules at index.

The deleteRule(index) method must run the following steps:

  1. If the origin-clean flag is unset, throw a SecurityError exception.
  2. If the disallow modification flag is set, throw a NotAllowedError DOMException.
  3. Remove a CSS rule in the CSS rules at index.

The replace(text) method must run the following steps:

  1. Let promise be a promise.
  2. If the constructed flag is not set, or the disallow modification flag is set, reject promise with a NotAllowedError DOMException and return promise.
  3. Set the disallow modification flag.
  4. In parallel, do these steps:
    1. Let rules be the result of running parse a list of rules from text. If rules is not a list of rules (i.e. an error occurred during parsing), set rules to an empty list.
    2. If rules contains one or more @import rules, remove those rules from rules.
    3. Set sheet’s CSS rules to rules.
    4. Unset sheet’s disallow modification flag.
    5. Resolve promise with sheet.
  5. Return promise.

The replaceSync(text) method must run the steps to synchronously replace the rules of a CSSStyleSheet on this CSSStyleSheet given text.

To synchronously replace the rules of a CSSStyleSheet on sheet given text, run these steps:

  1. If the constructed flag is not set, or the disallow modification flag is set, throw a NotAllowedError DOMException.
  2. Let rules be the result of running parse a list of rules from text. If rules is not a list of rules (i.e. an error occurred during parsing), set rules to an empty list.
  3. If rules contains one or more @import rules, remove those rules from rules.
  4. Set sheet’s CSS rules to rules.
6.1.2.1. Deprecated CSSStyleSheet members

Note: These members are required for compatibility with existing sites.

partial interface CSSStyleSheet {
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSRuleList rules;
  long addRule(optional DOMString selector = "undefined", optional DOMString style = "undefined", optional unsigned long index);
  undefined removeRule(optional unsigned long index = 0);
};

The rules attribute must follow the same steps as cssRules, and return the same object cssRules would return.

The removeRule(index) method must run the same steps as deleteRule().

The addRule(selector, block, optionalIndex) method must run the following steps:

  1. Let rule be an empty string.
  2. Append selector to rule.
  3. Append " { " to rule.
  4. If block is not empty, append block, followed by a space, to rule.
  5. Append "}" to rule
  6. Let index be optionalIndex if provided, or the number of CSS rules in the stylesheet otherwise.
  7. Call insertRule(), with rule and index as arguments.
  8. Return -1.

Authors should not use these members and should instead use and teach the standard CSSStyleSheet interface defined earlier, which is consistent with CSSGroupingRule.

6.2. CSS Style Sheet Collections

Below various new concepts are defined that are associated with each DocumentOrShadowRoot object.

Each DocumentOrShadowRoot has an associated list of zero or more CSS style sheets, named the document or shadow root CSS style sheets. This is an ordered list that contains:

  1. Any CSS style sheets created from HTTP Link headers, in header order
  2. Any CSS style sheets associated with the DocumentOrShadowRoot, in tree order

Each DocumentOrShadowRoot has an associated list of zero or more CSS style sheets, named the final CSS style sheets. This is an ordered list that contains:

  1. The document or shadow root CSS style sheets.
  2. The contents of DocumentOrShadowRoot's adoptedStyleSheets' backing list, in array order.

To create a CSS style sheet, run these steps:

  1. Create a new CSS style sheet object and set its properties as specified.
  2. Then run the add a CSS style sheet steps for the newly created CSS style sheet.

    If the origin-clean flag is unset, this can expose information from the user’s intranet.

To add a CSS style sheet, run these steps:

  1. Add the CSS style sheet to the list of document or shadow root CSS style sheets at the appropriate location. The remainder of these steps deal with the disabled flag.
  2. If the disabled flag is set, then return.
  3. If the title is not the empty string, the alternate flag is unset, and preferred CSS style sheet set name is the empty string change the preferred CSS style sheet set name to the title.
  4. If any of the following is true, then unset the disabled flag and return:
  5. Set the disabled flag.

To remove a CSS style sheet, run these steps:

  1. Remove the CSS style sheet from the list of document or shadow root CSS style sheets.
  2. Set the CSS style sheet’s parent CSS style sheet, owner node and owner CSS rule to null.

A persistent CSS style sheet is a CSS style sheet from the document or shadow root CSS style sheets whose title is the empty string and whose alternate flag is unset.

A CSS style sheet set is an ordered collection of one or more CSS style sheets from the document or shadow root CSS style sheets which have an identical title that is not the empty string.

A CSS style sheet set name is the title the CSS style sheet set has in common.

An enabled CSS style sheet set is a CSS style sheet set of which each CSS style sheet has its disabled flag unset.

To enable a CSS style sheet set with name name, run these steps:

  1. If name is the empty string, set the disabled flag for each CSS style sheet that is in a CSS style sheet set and return.
  2. Unset the disabled flag for each CSS style sheet in a CSS style sheet set whose CSS style sheet set name is a case-sensitive match for name and set it for all other CSS style sheets in a CSS style sheet set.

To select a CSS style sheet set with name name, run these steps:

  1. enable a CSS style sheet set with name name.
  2. Set last CSS style sheet set name to name.

A last CSS style sheet set name is a concept to determine what CSS style sheet set was last selected. Initially its value is null.

A preferred CSS style sheet set name is a concept to determine which CSS style sheets need to have their disabled flag unset. Initially its value is the empty string.

To change the preferred CSS style sheet set name with name name, run these steps:

  1. Let current be the preferred CSS style sheet set name.
  2. Set preferred CSS style sheet set name to name.
  3. If name is not a case-sensitive match for current and last CSS style sheet set name is null enable a CSS style sheet set with name name.

6.2.1. The HTTP Default-Style Header

The HTTP Default-Style header can be used to set the preferred CSS style sheet set name influencing which CSS style sheet set is (initially) the enabled CSS style sheet set.

For each HTTP Default-Style header, in header order, the user agent must change the preferred CSS style sheet set name with name being the value of the header.

6.2.2. The StyleSheetList Interface

The StyleSheetList interface represents an ordered collection of CSS style sheets.

[Exposed=Window]
interface StyleSheetList {
  getter CSSStyleSheet? item(unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
};

The object’s supported property indices are the numbers in the range zero to one less than the number of CSS style sheets represented by the collection. If there are no such CSS style sheets, then there are no supported property indices.

The item(index) method must return the indexth CSS style sheet in the collection. If there is no indexth object in the collection, then the method must return null.

The length attribute must return the number of CSS style sheets represented by the collection.

6.2.3. Extensions to the DocumentOrShadowRoot Interface Mixin

partial interface mixin DocumentOrShadowRoot {
  [SameObject] readonly attribute StyleSheetList styleSheets;
  attribute ObservableArray<CSSStyleSheet> adoptedStyleSheets;
};

The styleSheets attribute must return a StyleSheetList collection representing the document or shadow root CSS style sheets.

The set an indexed value algorithm for adoptedStyleSheets, given value and index, is the following:

  1. If value’s constructed flag is not set, or its constructor document is not equal to this DocumentOrShadowRoot's node document, throw a "NotAllowedError" DOMException.

6.3. Style Sheet Association

This section defines the interface an owner node of a CSS style sheet has to implement and defines the requirements for xml-stylesheet processing instructions and HTTP Link headers when the link relation type is an ASCII case-insensitive match for "stylesheet".

6.3.1. Fetching CSS style sheets

To fetch a CSS style sheet with parsed URL parsed URL, referrer referrer, document document, optionally a set of parameters parameters (used as input to creating a request), follow these steps:

  1. Let origin be document’s origin.
  2. Let request be a new request, with the url parsed URL, origin origin, referrer referrer, and if specified the set of parameters parameters.
  3. Let response be the result of fetching request.
  4. Wait until response is available.
  5. If response is a network error, return an error.
  6. If document is in quirks mode, response is CORS-same-origin and the Content-Type metadata of response is not a supported styling language change the Content-Type metadata of response to text/css.
  7. If response is not in a supported styling language return an error.
  8. Return response.

6.3.2. The LinkStyle Interface

The associated CSS style sheet of a node is the CSS style sheet in the list of document or shadow root CSS style sheets of which the owner node is said node. This node must also implement the LinkStyle interface.

interface mixin LinkStyle {
  readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet? sheet;
};

The sheet attribute must return the associated CSS style sheet for the node or null if there is no associated CSS style sheet.

In the following fragment, the first style element has a sheet attribute that returns a StyleSheet object representing the style sheet, but for the second style element, the sheet attribute returns null, assuming the user agent supports CSS (text/css), but does not support the (hypothetical) ExampleSheets (text/example-sheets).
<style type="text/css">
  body { background:lime }
</style>
<style type="text/example-sheets">
  $(body).background := lime
</style>

Note: Whether or not the node refers to a style sheet is defined by the specification that defines the semantics of said node.

6.3.3. Requirements on specifications

Specifications introducing new ways of associating style sheets through the DOM should define which nodes implement the LinkStyle interface. When doing so, they must also define when a CSS style sheet is created.

6.3.4. Requirements on user agents Implementing the xml-stylesheet processing instruction

ProcessingInstruction includes LinkStyle;

The prolog refers to nodes that are children of the document and are not following the Element child of the document, if any.

When a ProcessingInstruction node node becomes part of the prolog, is no longer part of the prolog, or has its data changed, these steps must be run:

  1. If an instance of this algorithm is currently running for node, abort that instance, and stop the associated fetching if applicable.
  2. If node has an associated CSS style sheet, remove it.
  3. If node is not an xml-stylesheet processing instruction, then return.
  4. If node does not have an href pseudo-attribute, then return.
  5. Let title be the value of the title pseudo-attribute or the empty string if the title pseudo-attribute is not specified.
  6. If there is an alternate pseudo-attribute whose value is a case-sensitive match for "yes" and title is the empty string, then return.
  7. If there is a type pseudo-attribute whose value is not a supported styling language the user agent may return.
  8. Let input URL be the value specified by the href pseudo-attribute.
  9. Let document be node’s node document
  10. Let base URL be document’s document base URL.
  11. Let referrer be document’s address.
  12. Let parsed URL be the return value of invoking the URL parser with the string input URL and the base URL base URL.
  13. If parsed URL is failure, then return.
  14. Let response be the result of fetching a CSS style sheet with parsed URL parsed URL, referrer referrer and document document.
  15. If response is an error, then return.
  16. Create a CSS style sheet with the following properties:
    location
    The result of invoking the URL serializer with parsed URL.
    parent CSS style sheet
    null.
    owner node
    node.
    owner CSS rule
    null.
    media
    The value of the media pseudo-attribute if any, or the empty string otherwise.
    title
    title.
    alternate flag
    Set if the alternate pseudo-attribute value is a case-sensitive match for "yes", or unset otherwise.
    origin-clean flag
    Set if response is CORS-same-origin, or unset otherwise.

    The CSS environment encoding is the result of running the following steps:

    1. If the element has a charset pseudo-attribute, get an encoding from that pseudo-attribute’s value. If that succeeds, return the resulting encoding and abort these steps.
    2. Otherwise, return the document’s character encoding. [DOM]

A style sheet referenced by an xml-stylesheet processing instruction using the rules in this section, in the context of the Document of an XML parser is said to be a style sheet that is blocking scripts if the ProcessingInstruction node was created by that Document's parser, and the style sheet was enabled when the node was created by the parser, the last time the event loop reached step 1, the node was in that Document, and the user agent hasn’t given up on loading that particular style sheet yet. A user agent may give up on such a style sheet at any time.

For each HTTP Link header of which one of the link relation types is an ASCII case-insensitive match for "stylesheet" these steps must be run:

  1. Let title be the value of the first of all the title parameters. If there are no such parameters it is the empty string.
  2. If one of the (other) link relation types is an ASCII case-insensitive match for "alternate" and title is the empty string, then return.
  3. Let input URL be the value specified.

    Be more specific

  4. Let base URL be the document’s document base URL.

    Is there a document at this point?

  5. Let referrer be the document’s address.
  6. Let origin be the document’s origin.
  7. Let parsed URL be the return value of invoking the URL parser with the string input URL and the base URL base URL.
  8. If parsed URL is failure, then return.
  9. Let response be the result of fetching a CSS style sheet with parsed URL parsed URL, referrer referrer and document being the document.

    What if the HTML parser hasn’t decided on quirks/non-quirks yet?

  10. Create a CSS style sheet with the following properties:
    location
    The result of invoking the URL serializer with parsed URL.
    owner node
    null.
    parent CSS style sheet
    null.
    owner CSS rule
    null.
    media
    The value of the first media parameter.
    title
    title.
    alternate flag
    Set if one of the specified link relation type for this HTTP Link header is an ASCII case-insensitive match for "alternate", or false otherwise.
    origin-clean flag
    Set if response is CORS-same-origin, or unset otherwise.

A style sheet referenced by a HTTP Link header using the rules in this section is said to be a style sheet that is blocking scripts if the style sheet was enabled when created, and the user agent hasn’t given up on that particular style sheet yet. A user agent may give up on such a style sheet at any time.

6.4. CSS Rules

A CSS rule is an abstract concept that denotes a rule as defined by the CSS specification. A CSS rule is represented as an object that implements a subclass of the CSSRule interface, and which has the following associated state items:

type
A non-negative integer associated with a particular type of rule. This item is initialized when a rule is created and cannot change.
text
A text representation of the rule suitable for direct use in a style sheet. This item is initialized when a rule is created and can be changed.
parent CSS rule
A reference to an enclosing CSS rule or null. If the rule has an enclosing rule when it is created, then this item is initialized to the enclosing rule; otherwise it is null. It can be changed to null.
parent CSS style sheet
A reference to a parent CSS style sheet or null. This item is initialized to reference an associated style sheet when the rule is created. It can be changed to null.
child CSS rules
A list of child CSS rules. The list can be mutated.

In addition to the above state, each CSS rule may be associated with other state in accordance with its type.

To parse a CSS rule from a string string, run the following steps:

  1. Let rule be the return value of invoking parse a rule with string.
  2. If rule is a syntax error, return rule.
  3. Let parsed rule be the result of parsing rule according to the appropriate CSS specifications, dropping parts that are said to be ignored. If the whole style rule is dropped, return a syntax error.
  4. Return parsed rule.

To serialize a CSS rule, perform one of the following in accordance with the CSS rule’s type:

CSSStyleRule
Return the result of the following steps:
  1. Let s initially be the result of performing serialize a group of selectors on the rule’s associated selectors, followed by the string " {", i.e., a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by LEFT CURLY BRACKET (U+007B).
  2. Let decls be the result of performing serialize a CSS declaration block on the rule’s associated declarations, or null if there are no such declarations.
  3. Let rules be the result of performing serialize a CSS rule on each rule in the rule’s cssRules list, or null if there are no such rules.
  4. If decls and rules are both null, append " }" to s (i.e. a single SPACE (U+0020) followed by RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (U+007D)) and return s.
  5. If rules is null:
    1. Append a single SPACE (U+0020) to s
    2. Append decls to s
    3. Append " }" to s (i.e. a single SPACE (U+0020) followed by RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (U+007D)).
    4. Return s.
  6. Otherwise:
    1. If decls is not null, prepend it to rules.
    2. For each rule in rules:
      1. Append a newline followed by two spaces to s.
      2. Append rule to s.
    3. Append a newline followed by RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (U+007D) to s.
    4. Return s.
CSSImportRule
The result of concatenating the following:
  1. The string "@import" followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).
  2. The result of performing serialize a URL on the rule’s location.
  3. If the rule’s associated media list is not empty, a single SPACE (U+0020) followed by the result of performing serialize a media query list on the media list.
  4. The string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
@import url("import.css");
@import url("print.css") print;
CSSMediaRule
The result of concatenating the following:
  1. The string "@media", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).
  2. The result of performing serialize a media query list on rule’s media query list.
  3. A single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "{", i.e., LEFT CURLY BRACKET (U+007B), followed by a newline.
  4. The result of performing serialize a CSS rule on each rule in the rule’s cssRules list, separated by a newline and indented by two spaces.
  5. A newline, followed by the string "}", i.e., RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (U+007D)
CSSFontFaceRule
The result of concatenating the following:
  1. The string "@font-face {", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).
  2. The string "font-family:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).
  3. The result of performing serialize a string on the rule’s font family name.
  4. The string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  5. If the rule’s associated source list is not empty, follow these substeps:
    1. A single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "src:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).
    2. The result of invoking serialize a comma-separated list on performing serialize a URL or serialize a LOCAL for each source on the source list.
    3. The string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  6. If rule’s associated unicode-range descriptor is present, a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "unicode-range:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the result of performing serialize a <'unicode-range'>, followed by the string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  7. If rule’s associated font-variant descriptor is present, a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "font-variant:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the result of performing serialize a <'font-variant'>, followed by the string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  8. If rule’s associated font-feature-settings descriptor is present, a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "font-feature-settings:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the result of performing serialize a <'font-feature-settings'>, followed by the string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  9. If rule’s associated font-stretch descriptor is present, a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "font-stretch:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the result of performing serialize a <'font-stretch'>, followed by the string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  10. If rule’s associated font-weight descriptor is present, a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "font-weight:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the result of performing serialize a <'font-weight'>, followed by the string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  11. If rule’s associated font-style descriptor is present, a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "font-style:", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the result of performing serialize a <'font-style'>, followed by the string ";", i.e., SEMICOLON (U+003B).
  12. A single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the string "}", i.e., RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (U+007D).

Need to define how the CSSFontFaceRule descriptors' values are serialized.

CSSPageRule

Need to define how CSSPageRule is serialized.

CSSNamespaceRule
The literal string "@namespace", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by the serialization as an identifier of the prefix attribute (if any), followed by a single SPACE (U+0020) if there is a prefix, followed by the serialization as URL of the namespaceURI attribute, followed the character ";" (U+003B).
CSSKeyframesRule
The result of concatenating the following:
  1. The literal string "@keyframes", followed by a single SPACE (U+0020).
  2. The serialization as an identifier of the name attribute.
  3. The result of performing serialize a CSS rule on each rule in the rule’s cssRules list, separated by a newline and indented by two spaces.
  4. A newline, followed by the string "}", i.e., RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (U+007D)
CSSKeyframeRule
The result of concatenating the following:
  1. The keyText.
  2. The string " { ", i.e., a single SPACE (U+0020), followed by LEFT CURLY BRACKET (U+007B),
  3. The result of performing serialize a CSS declaration block on the rule’s associated declarations.
  4. If the rule is associated with one or more declarations, the string " ", i.e., a single SPACE (U+0020).
  5. The string "}", RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (U+007D).

The "indented by two spaces" bit matches browsers, but needs work, see #5494

To insert a CSS rule rule in a CSS rule list list at index index, follow these steps:

  1. Set length to the number of items in list.
  2. If index is greater than length, then throw an IndexSizeError exception.
  3. Set new rule to the results of performing parse a CSS rule on argument rule.
  4. If new rule is a syntax error, throw a SyntaxError exception.
  5. If new rule cannot be inserted into list at the zero-index position index due to constraints specified by CSS, then throw a HierarchyRequestError exception. [CSS21]

    Note: For example, a CSS style sheet cannot contain an @import at-rule after a style rule.

  6. If new rule is an @namespace at-rule, and list contains anything other than @import at-rules, and @namespace at-rules, throw an InvalidStateError exception.
  7. Insert new rule into list at the zero-indexed position index.
  8. Return index.

To remove a CSS rule from a CSS rule list list at index index, follow these steps:

  1. Set length to the number of items in list.
  2. If index is greater than or equal to length, then throw an IndexSizeError exception.
  3. Set old rule to the indexth item in list.
  4. If old rule is an @namespace at-rule, and list contains anything other than @import at-rules, and @namespace at-rules, throw an InvalidStateError exception.
  5. Remove rule old rule from list at the zero-indexed position index.
  6. Set old rule’s parent CSS rule and parent CSS style sheet to null.

6.4.1. The CSSRuleList Interface

The CSSRuleList interface represents an ordered collection of CSS style rules.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSRuleList {
  getter CSSRule? item(unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
};

The object’s supported property indices are the numbers in the range zero to one less than the number of CSSRule objects represented by the collection. If there are no such CSSRule objects, then there are no supported property indices.

The item(index) method must return the indexth CSSRule object in the collection. If there is no indexth object in the collection, then the method must return null.

The length attribute must return the number of CSSRule objects represented by the collection.

6.4.2. The CSSRule Interface

The CSSRule interface represents an abstract, base CSS style rule. Each distinct CSS style rule type is represented by a distinct interface that inherits from this interface.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSRule {
  attribute CSSOMString cssText;
  readonly attribute CSSRule? parentRule;
  readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet? parentStyleSheet;

  // the following attribute and constants are historical
  readonly attribute unsigned short type;
  const unsigned short STYLE_RULE = 1;
  const unsigned short CHARSET_RULE = 2;
  const unsigned short IMPORT_RULE = 3;
  const unsigned short MEDIA_RULE = 4;
  const unsigned short FONT_FACE_RULE = 5;
  const unsigned short PAGE_RULE = 6;
  const unsigned short MARGIN_RULE = 9;
  const unsigned short NAMESPACE_RULE = 10;
};

The cssText attribute must return a serialization of the CSS rule. On setting the cssText attribute must do nothing.

The parentRule attribute must return the parent CSS rule.

Note: For example, @media can enclose a rule, in which case parentRule would be non-null; in cases where there is no enclosing rule, parentRule will be null.

The parentStyleSheet attribute must return the parent CSS style sheet.

Note: The only circumstance where null is returned when a rule has been removed.

Note: Removing a Node that implements the LinkStyle interface from a Document instance does not (by itself) cause the CSSStyleSheet referenced by a CSSRule to be unreachable.

The type attribute is deprecated. It must return an integer, as follows:

If the object is a CSSStyleRule
Return 1.
If the object is a CSSImportRule
Return 3.
If the object is a CSSMediaRule
Return 4.
If the object is a CSSFontFaceRule
Return 5.
If the object is a CSSPageRule
Return 6.
If the object is a CSSKeyframesRule
Return 7.
If the object is a CSSKeyframeRule
Return 8.
If the object is a CSSMarginRule
Return 9.
If the object is a CSSNamespaceRule
Return 10.
If the object is a CSSCounterStyleRule
Return 11.
If the object is a CSSSupportsRule
Return 12.
If the object is a CSSFontFeatureValuesRule
Return 14.
If the object is a CSSViewportRule
Return 15.
Otherwise
Return 0.

Note: The practice of using an integer enumeration and several constants to identify the integers is a legacy design practice that is no longer used in Web APIs. Instead, to tell what type of rule a given object is, it is recommended to check rule.constructor.name, which will return a string like "CSSStyleRule".

6.4.3. The CSSStyleRule Interface

The CSSStyleRule interface represents a style rule.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSStyleRule : CSSRule {
  attribute CSSOMString selectorText;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

The selectorText attribute, on getting, must return the result of serializing the associated group of selectors. On setting the selectorText attribute these steps must be run:

  1. Run the parse a group of selectors algorithm on the given value.
  2. If the algorithm returns a non-null value replace the associated group of selectors with the returned value.
  3. Otherwise, if the algorithm returns a null value, do nothing.

The style attribute must return a CSSStyleDeclaration object for the style rule, with the following properties:

computed flag
Unset.
declarations
The declared declarations in the rule, in specified order.
parent CSS rule
The context object.
owner node
Null.

The specified order for declarations is the same as specified, but with shorthand properties expanded into their longhand properties, in canonical order. If a property is specified more than once (after shorthand expansion), only the one with greatest cascading order must be represented, at the same relative position as it was specified. [CSS3CASCADE]

6.4.4. The CSSImportRule Interface

The CSSImportRule interface represents an @import at-rule.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSImportRule : CSSRule {
  readonly attribute USVString href;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=mediaText] readonly attribute MediaList media;
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet styleSheet;
};

The href attribute must return the URL specified by the @import at-rule.

Note: To get the resolved URL use the href attribute of the associated CSS style sheet.

The media attribute must return the value of the media attribute of the associated CSS style sheet.

The styleSheet attribute must return the associated CSS style sheet.

Note: An @import at-rule always has an associated CSS style sheet.

6.4.5. The CSSGroupingRule Interface

The CSSGroupingRule interface represents an at-rule that contains other rules nested inside itself.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSGroupingRule : CSSRule {
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSRuleList cssRules;
  unsigned long insertRule(CSSOMString rule, optional unsigned long index = 0);
  undefined deleteRule(unsigned long index);
};

The cssRules attribute must return a CSSRuleList object for the child CSS rules.

The insertRule(rule, index) method must return the result of invoking insert a CSS rule rule into the child CSS rules at index.

The deleteRule(index) method must remove a CSS rule from the child CSS rules at index.

6.4.6. The CSSMediaRule Interface

The CSSMediaRule interface is defined in CSS Conditional Rules. [CSS3-CONDITIONAL]

6.4.7. The CSSPageRule Interface

The CSSPageRule interface represents an @page at-rule.

Need to define the rules for parse a list of CSS page selectors and serialize a list of CSS page selectors.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSPageRule : CSSGroupingRule {
           attribute CSSOMString selectorText;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

The selectorText attribute, on getting, must return the result of serializing the associated list of CSS page selectors. On setting the selectorText attribute these steps must be run:

  1. Run the parse a list of CSS page selectors algorithm on the given value.
  2. If the algorithm returns a non-null value replace the associated list of CSS page selectors with the returned value.
  3. Otherwise, if the algorithm returns a null value, do nothing.

The style attribute must return a CSSStyleDeclaration object for the @page at-rule, with the following properties:

computed flag
Unset.
declarations
The declared declarations in the rule, in specified order.
parent CSS rule
The context object.
owner node
Null.

6.4.8. The CSSMarginRule Interface

The CSSMarginRule interface represents a margin at-rule (e.g. @top-left) in an @page at-rule. [CSS3PAGE]

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSMarginRule : CSSRule {
  readonly attribute CSSOMString name;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

The name attribute must return the name of the margin at-rule. The @ character is not included in the name. [CSS3SYN]

The style attribute must return a CSSStyleDeclaration object for the margin at-rule, with the following properties:

computed flag
Unset.
declarations
The declared declarations in the rule, in specified order.
parent CSS rule
The context object.
owner node
Null.

6.4.9. The CSSNamespaceRule Interface

The CSSNamespaceRule interface represents an @namespace at-rule.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSNamespaceRule : CSSRule {
  readonly attribute CSSOMString namespaceURI;
  readonly attribute CSSOMString prefix;
};

The namespaceURI attribute must return the namespace of the @namespace at-rule.

The prefix attribute must return the prefix of the @namespace at-rule or the empty string if there is no prefix.

6.5. CSS Declarations

A CSS declaration is an abstract concept that is not exposed as an object in the DOM. A CSS declaration has the following associated properties:

property name
The property name of the declaration.
value
The value of the declaration represented as a list of component values.
important flag
Either set or unset. Can be changed.
case-sensitive flag
Set if the property name is defined to be case-sensitive according to its specification, otherwise unset.

6.6. CSS Declaration Blocks

A CSS declaration block is an ordered collection of CSS properties with their associated values, also named CSS declarations. In the DOM a CSS declaration block is a CSSStyleDeclaration object. A CSS declaration block has the following associated properties:

computed flag
Set if the object is a computed style declaration, rather than a specified style. Unless otherwise stated it is unset.
declarations
The CSS declarations associated with the object.
parent CSS rule
The CSS rule that the CSS declaration block is associated with, if any, or null otherwise.
owner node
The Element that the CSS declaration block is associated with, if any, or null otherwise.
updating flag
Unset by default. Set when the CSS declaration block is updating the owner node’s style attribute.

To parse a CSS declaration block from a string string, follow these steps:

  1. Let declarations be the return value of invoking parse a list of declarations with string.
  2. Let parsed declarations be a new empty list.
  3. For each item declaration in declarations, follow these substeps:
    1. Let parsed declaration be the result of parsing declaration according to the appropriate CSS specifications, dropping parts that are said to be ignored. If the whole declaration is dropped, let parsed declaration be null.
    2. If parsed declaration is not null, append it to parsed declarations.
  4. Return parsed declarations.

To serialize a CSS declaration with property name property, value value and optionally an important flag set, follow these steps:

  1. Let s be the empty string.
  2. Append property to s.
  3. Append ": " (U+003A U+0020) to s.
  4. Append value to s.
  5. If the important flag is set, append " !important" (U+0020 U+0021 U+0069 U+006D U+0070 U+006F U+0072 U+0074 U+0061 U+006E U+0074) to s.
  6. Append ";" (U+003B) to s.
  7. Return s.

To serialize a CSS declaration block declaration block means to run the steps below:

  1. Let list be an empty array.
  2. Let already serialized be an empty array.
  3. Declaration loop: For each CSS declaration declaration in declaration block’s declarations, follow these substeps:
    1. Let property be declaration’s property name.
    2. If property is in already serialized, continue with the steps labeled declaration loop.
    3. If property maps to one or more shorthand properties, let shorthands be an array of those shorthand properties, in preferred order.
    4. Shorthand loop: For each shorthand in shorthands, follow these substeps:
      1. Let longhands be an array consisting of all CSS declarations in declaration block’s declarations that that are not in already serialized and have a property name that maps to one of the shorthand properties in shorthands.
      2. If all properties that map to shorthand are not present in longhands, continue with the steps labeled shorthand loop.
      3. Let current longhands be an empty array.
      4. Append all CSS declarations in longhands that have a property name that maps to shorthand to current longhands.
      5. If there is one or more CSS declarations in current longhands have their important flag set and one or more with it unset, continue with the steps labeled shorthand loop.
      6. If there’s any declaration in declaration block in between the first and the last longhand in current longhands which belongs to the same logical property group, but has a different mapping logic as any of the longhands in current longhands, and is not in current longhands, continue with the steps labeled shorthand loop.
      7. Let value be the result of invoking serialize a CSS value of current longhands.
      8. If value is the empty string, continue with the steps labeled shorthand loop.
      9. Let serialized declaration be the result of invoking serialize a CSS declaration with property name shorthand, value value, and the important flag set if the CSS declarations in current longhands have their important flag set.
      10. Append serialized declaration to list.
      11. Append the property names of all items of current longhands to already serialized.
      12. Continue with the steps labeled declaration loop.
    5. Let value be the result of invoking serialize a CSS value of declaration.
    6. Let serialized declaration be the result of invoking serialize a CSS declaration with property name property, value value, and the important flag set if declaration has its important flag set.
    7. Append serialized declaration to list.
    8. Append property to already serialized.
  4. Return list joined with " " (U+0020).

Note: The serialization of an empty CSS declaration block is the empty string.

Note: The serialization of a non-empty CSS declaration block does not include any surrounding whitespace, i.e., no whitespace appears before the first property name and no whitespace appears after the final semicolon delimiter that follows the last property value.

A CSS declaration block has these attribute change steps for its owner node with localName, value, and namespace:

  1. If the computed flag is set, then return.
  2. If the updating flag is set, then return.
  3. If localName is not "style", or namespace is not null, then return.
  4. If value is null, empty the declarations.
  5. Otherwise, let the declarations be the result of parse a CSS declaration block from a string value.

When a CSS declaration block object is created, then:

  1. Let owner node be the owner node.
  2. If owner node is null, or the computed flag is set, then return.
  3. Let value be the result of getting an attribute given null, "style", and owner node.
  4. If value is not null, let the declarations be the result of parse a CSS declaration block from a string value.

To update style attribute for declaration block means to run the steps below:

  1. Assert: declaration block’s computed flag is unset.
  2. Let owner node be declaration block’s owner node.
  3. If owner node is null, then return.
  4. Set declaration block’s updating flag.
  5. Set an attribute value for owner node using "style" and the result of serializing declaration block.
  6. Unset declaration block’s updating flag.

The preferred order of a list of shorthand properties shorthands is as follows:

  1. Order shorthands lexicographically.
  2. Move all items in shorthands that begin with "-" (U+002D) last in the list, retaining their relative order.
  3. Move all items in shorthands that begin with "-" (U+002D) but do not begin with "-webkit-" last in the list, retaining their relative order.
  4. Order shorthands by the number of longhand properties that map to it, with the greatest number first.

6.6.1. The CSSStyleDeclaration Interface

The CSSStyleDeclaration interface represents a CSS declaration block, including its underlying state, where this underlying state depends upon the source of the CSSStyleDeclaration instance.

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSStyleDeclaration {
  [CEReactions] attribute CSSOMString cssText;
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
  getter CSSOMString item(unsigned long index);
  CSSOMString getPropertyValue(CSSOMString property);
  CSSOMString getPropertyPriority(CSSOMString property);
  [CEReactions] undefined setProperty(CSSOMString property, [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString value, optional [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString priority = "");
  [CEReactions] CSSOMString removeProperty(CSSOMString property);
  readonly attribute CSSRule? parentRule;
  [CEReactions] attribute [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString cssFloat;
};

The object’s supported property indices are the numbers in the range zero to one less than the number of CSS declarations in the declarations. If there are no such CSS declarations, then there are no supported property indices.

Getting the cssText attribute must run these steps:

  1. If the computed flag is set, then return the empty string.

  2. Return the result of serializing the declarations.

Setting the cssText attribute must run these steps:

  1. If the computed flag is set, then throw a NoModificationAllowedError exception.
  2. Empty the declarations.
  3. Parse the given value and, if the return value is not the empty list, insert the items in the list into the declarations, in specified order.
  4. Update style attribute for the CSS declaration block.

The length attribute must return the number of CSS declarations in the declarations.

The item(index) method must return the property name of the CSS declaration at position index.

The getPropertyValue(property) method must run these steps:

  1. If property is not a custom property, follow these substeps:
    1. Let property be property converted to ASCII lowercase.
    2. If property is a shorthand property, then follow these substeps:
      1. Let list be a new empty array.
      2. For each longhand property longhand that property maps to, in canonical order, follow these substeps:
        1. If longhand is a case-sensitive match for a property name of a CSS declaration in the declarations, let declaration be that CSS declaration, or null otherwise.
        2. If declaration is null, then return the empty string.
        3. Append the declaration to list.
      3. If important flags of all declarations in list are same, then return the serialization of list.
      4. Return the empty string.
  2. If property is a case-sensitive match for a property name of a CSS declaration in the declarations, then return the result of invoking serialize a CSS value of that declaration.
  3. Return the empty string.

The getPropertyPriority(property) method must run these steps:

  1. If property is not a custom property, follow these substeps:
    1. Let property be property converted to ASCII lowercase.
    2. If property is a shorthand property, follow these substeps:
      1. Let list be a new array.
      2. For each longhand property longhand that property maps to, append the result of invoking getPropertyPriority() with longhand as argument to list.
      3. If all items in list are the string "important", then return the string "important".
  2. If property is a case-sensitive match for a property name of a CSS declaration in the declarations that has the important flag set, return the string "important".
  3. Return the empty string.
E.g. for background-color:lime !IMPORTANT the return value would be "important".

The setProperty(property, value, priority) method must run these steps:

  1. If the computed flag is set, then throw a NoModificationAllowedError exception.
  2. If property is not a custom property, follow these substeps:
    1. Let property be property converted to ASCII lowercase.
    2. If property is not a case-sensitive match for a supported CSS property, then return.
  3. If value is the empty string, invoke removeProperty() with property as argument and return.
  4. If priority is not the empty string and is not an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string "important", then return.
  5. Let component value list be the result of parsing value for property property.

    Note: value can not include "!important".

  6. If component value list is null, then return.
  7. Let updated be false.
  8. If property is a shorthand property, then for each longhand property longhand that property maps to, in canonical order, follow these substeps:
    1. Let longhand result be the result of set the CSS declaration longhand with the appropriate value(s) from component value list, with the important flag set if priority is not the empty string, and unset otherwise, and with the list of declarations being the declarations.
    2. If longhand result is true, let updated be true.
  9. Otherwise, let updated be the result of set the CSS declaration property with value component value list, with the important flag set if priority is not the empty string, and unset otherwise, and with the list of declarations being the declarations.
  10. If updated is true, update style attribute for the CSS declaration block.

To set a CSS declaration property with a value component value list and optionally with an important flag set, in a list of declarations declarations, the user agent must ensure the following constraints hold after its steps:

Should we add something like "Any observable side effect must not be made outside declarations"? The current constraints sound like a hole for undefined behavior.

Note: The steps of set a CSS declaration are not defined in this level of CSSOM. User agents may use different algorithms as long as the constraints above hold.

The simplest way to conform with the constraints would be to always remove any existing declaration matching property, and append the new declaration to the end. But based on implementation feedback, this approach would likely regress performance.

Another possible algorithm is:

  1. If property is a case-sensitive match for a property name of a CSS declaration in declarations, follow these substeps:
    1. Let target declaration be such CSS declaration.
    2. Let needs append be false.
    3. For each declaration in declarations after target declaration:
      1. If declaration’s property name is not in the same logical property group as property, then continue.
      2. If declarationproperty name has the same mapping logic as property, then continue.
      3. Let needs append be true.
      4. Break.
    4. If needs append is false, then:
      1. Let needs update be false.
      2. If target declaration’s value is not equal to component value list, then let needs update be true.
      3. If target declaration’s important flag is not equal to whether important flag is set, then let needs update be true.
      4. If needs update is false, then return false.
      5. Set target declaration’s value to component value list.
      6. If important flag is set, then set target declaration’s important flag, otherwise unset it.
      7. Return true.
    5. Otherwise, remove target declaration from declarations.
  2. Append a new CSS declaration with property name property, value component value list, and important flag set if important flag is set to declarations.
  3. Return true.

The removeProperty(property) method must run these steps:

  1. If the computed flag is set, then throw a NoModificationAllowedError exception.
  2. If property is not a custom property, let property be property converted to ASCII lowercase.
  3. Let value be the return value of invoking getPropertyValue() with property as argument.
  4. Let removed be false.
  5. If property is a shorthand property, for each longhand property longhand that property maps to:
    1. If longhand is not a property name of a CSS declaration in the declarations, continue.
    2. Remove that CSS declaration and let removed be true.
  6. Otherwise, if property is a case-sensitive match for a property name of a CSS declaration in the declarations, remove that CSS declaration and let removed be true.
  7. If removed is true, Update style attribute for the CSS declaration block.
  8. Return value.

The parentRule attribute must return the parent CSS rule.

The cssFloat attribute, on getting, must return the result of invoking getPropertyValue() with float as argument. On setting, the attribute must invoke setProperty() with float as first argument, as second argument the given value, and no third argument. Any exceptions thrown must be re-thrown.

For each CSS property property that is a supported CSS property, the following partial interface applies where camel-cased attribute is obtained by running the CSS property to IDL attribute algorithm for property.

partial interface CSSStyleDeclaration {
  [CEReactions] attribute [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString _camel_cased_attribute;
};

The camel-cased attribute attribute, on getting, must return the result of invoking getPropertyValue() with the argument being the result of running the IDL attribute to CSS property algorithm for camel-cased attribute.

Setting the camel-cased attribute attribute must invoke setProperty() with the first argument being the result of running the IDL attribute to CSS property algorithm for camel-cased attribute, as second argument the given value, and no third argument. Any exceptions thrown must be re-thrown.

For example, for the font-size property there would be a fontSize IDL attribute.

For each CSS property property that is a supported CSS property and that begins with the string -webkit-, the following partial interface applies where webkit-cased attribute is obtained by running the CSS property to IDL attribute algorithm for property, with the lowercase first flag set.

partial interface CSSStyleDeclaration {
  [CEReactions] attribute [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString _webkit_cased_attribute;
};

The webkit-cased attribute attribute, on getting, must return the result of invoking getPropertyValue() with the argument being the result of running the IDL attribute to CSS property algorithm for webkit-cased attribute, with the dash prefix flag set.

Setting the webkit-cased attribute attribute must invoke setProperty() with the first argument being the result of running the IDL attribute to CSS property algorithm for webkit-cased attribute, with the dash prefix flag set, as second argument the given value, and no third argument. Any exceptions thrown must be re-thrown.

For example, if the user agent supports the -webkit-transform property, there would be a webkitTransform IDL attribute. There would also be a WebkitTransform IDL attribute because of the rules for camel-cased attributes.

For each CSS property property that is a supported CSS property, except for properties that have no "-" (U+002D) in the property name, the following partial interface applies where dashed attribute is property.

partial interface CSSStyleDeclaration {
  [CEReactions] attribute [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString _dashed_attribute;
};

The dashed attribute attribute, on getting, must return the result of invoking getPropertyValue() with the argument being dashed attribute.

Setting the dashed attribute attribute must invoke setProperty() with the first argument being dashed attribute, as second argument the given value, and no third argument. Any exceptions thrown must be re-thrown.

For example, for the font-size property there would be a font-size IDL attribute. In JavaScript, the property can be accessed as follows, assuming element is an HTML element:
element.style['font-size'];

The CSS property to IDL attribute algorithm for property, optionally with a lowercase first flag set, is as follows:

  1. Let output be the empty string.
  2. Let uppercase next be unset.
  3. If the lowercase first flag is set, remove the first character from property.
  4. For each character c in property:
    1. If c is "-" (U+002D), let uppercase next be set.
    2. Otherwise, if uppercase next is set, let uppercase next be unset and append c converted to ASCII uppercase to output.
    3. Otherwise, append c to output.
  5. Return output.

The IDL attribute to CSS property algorithm for attribute, optionally with a dash prefix flag set, is as follows:

  1. Let output be the empty string.
  2. If the dash prefix flag is set, append "-" (U+002D) to output.
  3. For each character c in attribute:
    1. If c is in the range U+0041 to U+005A (ASCII uppercase), append "-" (U+002D) followed by c converted to ASCII lowercase to output.
    2. Otherwise, append c to output.
  4. Return output.

6.7. CSS Values

6.7.1. Parsing CSS Values

To parse a CSS value value for a given property means to follow these steps:

  1. Let list be the value returned by invoking parse a list of component values from value.
  2. Match list against the grammar for the property property in the CSS specification.
  3. If the above step failed, return null.
  4. Return list.

Note: "!important" declarations are not part of the property value space and will therefore cause parse a CSS value to return null.

6.7.2. Serializing CSS Values

To serialize a CSS value of a CSS declaration declaration or a list of longhand CSS declarations list, follow these rules:

  1. If this algorithm is invoked with a list list:

    1. Let shorthand be the first shorthand property, in preferred order, that exactly maps to all of the longhand properties in list.

    2. If there is no such shorthand or shorthand cannot exactly represent the values of all the properties in list, return the empty string.

    3. Otherwise, serialize a CSS value from a hypothetical declaration of the property shorthand with its value representing the combined values of the declarations in list.

  2. Represent the value of the declaration as a list of CSS component values components that, when parsed according to the property’s grammar, would represent that value. Additionally:

    • If certain component values can appear in any order without changing the meaning of the value (a pattern typically represented by a double bar || in the value syntax), reorder the component values to use the canonical order of component values as given in the property definition table.

    • If component values can be omitted or replaced with a shorter representation without changing the meaning of the value, omit/replace them.

    • If either of the above syntactic translations would be less backwards-compatible, do not perform them.

    Note: The rules described here outlines the general principles of serialization. For legacy reasons, some properties serialize in a different manner, which is intentionally undefined here due to lack of resources. Please consult your local reverse-engineer for details.

  3. Remove any <whitespace-token>s from components.

  4. Replace each component value in components with the result of invoking serialize a CSS component value.

  5. Join the items of components into a single string, inserting " " (U+0020 SPACE) between each pair of items unless the second item is a "," (U+002C COMMA) Return the result.

To serialize a CSS component value depends on the component, as follows:

keyword
The keyword converted to ASCII lowercase.
<angle>
The <number> component serialized as per <number> followed by the unit in canonical form as defined in its respective specification.

Probably should distinguish between specified and computed / resolved values.

<color>
If <color> is a component of a resolved value, see CSS Color 4 § 4.6 Resolving <color> Values.

If <color> is a component of a computed value, see CSS Color 4 § 4.7 Serializing <color> Values.

If <color> is a component of a specified value, then return the color as follows:

  1. If the color was explicitly specified by the author, then return the original, author specified color value.
  2. Otherwise, return the value that would be returned if the color were a component of a computed value.

Should author specified values be normalized for case, the same as computed values? Or should original case be preserved?

<alphavalue>
If the value is internally represented as an integer between 0 and 255 inclusive (i.e. 8-bit unsigned integer), follow these steps:
  1. Let alpha be the given integer.
  2. If there exists an integer between 0 and 100 inclusive that, when multiplied with 2.55 and rounded to the closest integer (rounding up if two values are equally close), equals alpha, let rounded be that integer divided by 100.
  3. Otherwise, let rounded be alpha divided by 0.255 and rounded to the closest integer (rounding up if two values are equally close), divided by 1000.
  4. Return the result of serializing rounded as a <number>.

Otherwise, return the result of serializing the given value as a <number>.

<counter>
The return value of the following algorithm:
  1. Let s be the empty string.
  2. If <counter> has three CSS component values append the string "counters(" to s.
  3. If <counter> has two CSS component values append the string "counter(" to s.
  4. Let list be a list of CSS component values belonging to <counter>, omitting the last CSS component value if it is "decimal".
  5. Let each item in list be the result of invoking serialize a CSS component value on that item.
  6. Append the result of invoking serialize a comma-separated list on list to s.
  7. Append ")" (U+0029) to s.
  8. Return s.
<frequency>
The <number> component serialized as per <number> followed by the unit in its canonical form as defined in its respective specification.

Probably should distinguish between specified and computed / resolved values.

<identifier>
The identifier serialized as an identifier.
<integer>
A base-ten integer using digits 0-9 (U+0030 to U+0039) in the shortest form possible, preceded by "-" (U+002D) if it is negative.
<length>
The <number> component serialized as per <number> followed by the unit in its canonical form as defined in its respective specification.

Probably should distinguish between specified and computed / resolved values.

<number>
A base-ten number using digits 0-9 (U+0030 to U+0039) in the shortest form possible, using "." to separate decimals (if any), rounding the value if necessary to not produce more than 6 decimals, preceded by "-" (U+002D) if it is negative.

Note: scientific notation is not used.

<percentage>
The <number> component serialized as per <number> followed by the literal string "%" (U+0025).
<resolution>
The resolution in dots per CSS pixel serialized as per <number> followed by the literal string "dppx".
<ratio>
The numerator serialized as per <number> followed by the literal string " / ", followed by the denominator serialized as per <number>.
<shape>
The return value of the following algorithm:
  1. Let s be the string "rect(".
  2. Let list be a list of the CSS component values belonging to <shape>.
  3. Let each item in list be the result of invoking serialize a CSS component value of that item.
  4. Append the result of invoking serialize a comma-separated list on list to s.
  5. Append ")" (U+0029) to s.
  6. Return s.
<string>
<family-name>
<specific-voice>
The string serialized as a string.
<time>
The time in seconds serialized as per <number> followed by the literal string "s".
<url>
The absolute-URL string serialized as URL.

This should differentiate specified and computed <url> values, see #3195.

<absolute-size>, <border-width>, <border-style>, <bottom>, <generic-family>, <generic-voice>, <left>, <margin-width>, <padding-width>, <relative-size>, <right>, and <top>, are considered macros by this specification. They all represent instances of components outlined above.

One idea is that we can remove this section somewhere in the CSS3/CSS4 timeline by moving the above definitions to the drafts that define the CSS components.

6.7.2.1. Examples

Here are some examples of before and after results on specified values. The before column could be what the author wrote in a style sheet, while the after column shows what querying the DOM would return.

Before After
background: none background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)
outline: none outline: invert
border: none border: medium
list-style: none list-style: disc
margin: 0 1px 1px 1px margin: 0px 1px 1px
azimuth: behind left azimuth: 220deg
font-family: a, 'b"', serif font-family: "a", "b\"", serif
content: url('h)i') '\[\]' content: url("h)i") "[]"
azimuth: leftwards azimuth: leftwards
color: rgb(18, 52, 86) color: #123456
color: rgba(000001, 0, 0, 1) color: #000000

Some of these need to be updated per the new rules.

7. DOM Access to CSS Declaration Blocks

7.1. The ElementCSSInlineStyle Mixin

The ElementCSSInlineStyle mixin provides access to inline style properties of an element.

interface mixin ElementCSSInlineStyle {
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

The style attribute must return a CSS declaration block object whose computed flag is unset, whose parent CSS rule is null, and whose owner node is the context object.

If the user agent supports HTML, the following IDL applies: [HTML]

HTMLElement includes ElementCSSInlineStyle;

If the user agent supports SVG, the following IDL applies: [SVG11]

SVGElement includes ElementCSSInlineStyle;

If the user agent supports MathML, the following IDL applies: [MathML-Core]

MathMLElement includes ElementCSSInlineStyle;

7.2. Extensions to the Window Interface

partial interface Window {
  [NewObject] CSSStyleDeclaration getComputedStyle(Element elt, optional CSSOMString? pseudoElt);
};

The getComputedStyle(elt, pseudoElt) method must run these steps:

  1. Let doc be elt’s node document.
  2. Let obj be elt.
  3. If pseudoElt is provided, and it’s not the empty string, then:
    1. Parse pseudoElt as a <pseudo-element-selector>, and let type be the result.
    2. If type is failure, or is an ::slotted() or ::part() pseudo-element, throw a TypeError exception.
    3. Otherwise let obj be the given pseudo-element of elt.

    Note: CSS2 pseudo-elements should match both the double and single-colon versions. That is, both :before and ::before should match above.

  4. Let decls be an empty list of CSS declarations.
  5. If elt is connected, part of the flat tree, and its shadow-including root has a browsing context which either doesn’t have a browsing context container, or whose browsing context container is being rendered, set decls to a list of all longhand properties that are supported CSS properties, in lexicographical order, with the value being the resolved value computed for obj using the style rules associated with doc. Additionally, append to decls all the custom properties whose computed value for obj is not the guaranteed-invalid value.

    There are UAs that handle shorthands, and all UAs handle shorthands that used to be longhands like overflow, see #2529.

    Order of custom properties is currently undefined, see #4947.

  6. Return a live CSS declaration block with the following properties:
    computed flag
    Set.
    declarations
    decls.
    parent CSS rule
    Null.
    owner node
    obj.

The getComputedStyle() method exposes information from CSS style sheets with the origin-clean flag unset.

Should getComputedStyle() provide a useful serialization? See #1033

8. Utility APIs

8.1. The CSS.escape() Method

The CSS namespace holds useful CSS-related functions that do not belong elsewhere.

[Exposed=Window]
namespace CSS {
  CSSOMString escape(CSSOMString ident);
};

This was previously specified as an IDL interface that only held static methods. Switching to an IDL namespace is *nearly* identical, so it’s expected that there won’t be any compat concerns. If any are discovered, please report so we can consider reverting this change.

The escape(ident) operation must return the result of invoking serialize an identifier of ident.

For example, to serialize a string for use as part of a selector, the escape() method can be used:
var element = document.querySelector('#' + CSS.escape(id) + ' > img');
The escape() method can also be used for escaping strings, although it escapes characters that don’t strictly need to be escaped:
var element = document.querySelector('a[href="#' + CSS.escape(fragment) + '"]');

Specifications that define operations on the CSS namespace and want to store some state should store the state on the current global object’s associated Document.

9. Resolved Values

getComputedStyle() was historically defined to return the "computed value" of an element or pseudo-element. However, the concept of "computed value" changed between revisions of CSS while the implementation of getComputedStyle() had to remain the same for compatibility with deployed scripts. To address this issue this specification introduces the concept of a resolved value.

The resolved value for a given longhand property can be determined as follows:

background-color
border-block-end-color
border-block-start-color
border-bottom-color
border-inline-end-color
border-inline-start-color
border-left-color
border-right-color
border-top-color
box-shadow
caret-color
color
outline-color
A resolved value special case property like color defined in another specification
The resolved value is the used value.
line-height
The resolved value is normal if the computed value is normal, or the used value otherwise.
block-size
height
inline-size
margin-block-end
margin-block-start
margin-bottom
margin-inline-end
margin-inline-start
margin-left
margin-right
margin-top
padding-block-end
padding-block-start
padding-bottom
padding-inline-end
padding-inline-start
padding-left
padding-right
padding-top
width
A resolved value special case property like height defined in another specification
If the property applies to the element or pseudo-element and the resolved value of the display property is not none or contents, then the resolved value is the used value. Otherwise the resolved value is the computed value.
bottom
left
inset-block-end
inset-block-start
inset-inline-end
inset-inline-start
right
top
A resolved value special case property like top defined in another specification
If the property applies to a positioned element and the resolved value of the display property is not none or contents, and the property is not over-constrained, then the resolved value is the used value. Otherwise the resolved value is the computed value.
A resolved value special case property defined in another specification
As defined in the relevant specification.
Any other property
The resolved value is the computed value.

10. IANA Considerations

10.1. Default-Style

This section describes a header field for registration in the Permanent Message Header Field Registry.

Header field name
Default-Style
Applicable protocol
http
Status
standard
Author/Change controller
W3C
Specification document(s)
This document is the relevant specification.
Related information
None.

11. Change History

This section documents some of the changes between publications of this specification. This section is not exhaustive. Bug fixes and editorial changes are generally not listed.

11.1. Changes From 17 March 2016

11.2. Changes From 5 December 2013

11.3. Changes From 12 July 2011 To 5 December 2013

12. Security and Privacy Considerations

No new security or privacy considerations have been reported on this specification.

13. Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank Alexey Feldgendler, Benjamin Poulain, Björn Höhrmann, Boris Zbasky, Brian Kardell, Chris Dumez, Christian Krebs, Daniel Glazman, David Baron, Domenic Denicola, Dominique Hazael-Massieux, fantasai, Hallvord R. M. Steen, Ian Hickson, John Daggett, Lachlan Hunt, Mike Sherov, Myles C. Maxfield, Morten Stenshorne, Ms2ger, Nazım Can Altınova, Øyvind Stenhaug, Peter Sloetjes, Philip Jägenstedt, Philip Taylor, Richard Gibson, Robert O’Callahan, Simon Sapin, Sjoerd Visscher, Sylvain Galineau, Tarquin Wilton-Jones, Xidorn Quan, and Zack Weinberg for contributing to this specification.

Additional thanks to Ian Hickson for writing the initial version of the alternative style sheets API and canonicalization (now serialization) rules for CSS values.

Conformance

Document conventions

Conformance requirements are expressed with a combination of descriptive assertions and RFC 2119 terminology. The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in the normative parts of this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. However, for readability, these words do not appear in all uppercase letters in this specification.

All of the text of this specification is normative except sections explicitly marked as non-normative, examples, and notes. [RFC2119]

Examples in this specification are introduced with the words “for example” or are set apart from the normative text with class="example", like this:

This is an example of an informative example.

Informative notes begin with the word “Note” and are set apart from the normative text with class="note", like this:

Note, this is an informative note.

Advisements are normative sections styled to evoke special attention and are set apart from other normative text with <strong class="advisement">, like this: UAs MUST provide an accessible alternative.

Conformance classes

Conformance to this specification is defined for three conformance classes:

style sheet
A CSS style sheet.
renderer
A UA that interprets the semantics of a style sheet and renders documents that use them.
authoring tool
A UA that writes a style sheet.

A style sheet is conformant to this specification if all of its statements that use syntax defined in this module are valid according to the generic CSS grammar and the individual grammars of each feature defined in this module.

A renderer is conformant to this specification if, in addition to interpreting the style sheet as defined by the appropriate specifications, it supports all the features defined by this specification by parsing them correctly and rendering the document accordingly. However, the inability of a UA to correctly render a document due to limitations of the device does not make the UA non-conformant. (For example, a UA is not required to render color on a monochrome monitor.)

An authoring tool is conformant to this specification if it writes style sheets that are syntactically correct according to the generic CSS grammar and the individual grammars of each feature in this module, and meet all other conformance requirements of style sheets as described in this module.

Partial implementations

So that authors can exploit the forward-compatible parsing rules to assign fallback values, CSS renderers must treat as invalid (and ignore as appropriate) any at-rules, properties, property values, keywords, and other syntactic constructs for which they have no usable level of support. In particular, user agents must not selectively ignore unsupported component values and honor supported values in a single multi-value property declaration: if any value is considered invalid (as unsupported values must be), CSS requires that the entire declaration be ignored.

Implementations of Unstable and Proprietary Features

To avoid clashes with future stable CSS features, the CSSWG recommends following best practices for the implementation of unstable features and proprietary extensions to CSS.

Non-experimental implementations

Once a specification reaches the Candidate Recommendation stage, non-experimental implementations are possible, and implementors should release an unprefixed implementation of any CR-level feature they can demonstrate to be correctly implemented according to spec.

To establish and maintain the interoperability of CSS across implementations, the CSS Working Group requests that non-experimental CSS renderers submit an implementation report (and, if necessary, the testcases used for that implementation report) to the W3C before releasing an unprefixed implementation of any CSS features. Testcases submitted to W3C are subject to review and correction by the CSS Working Group.

Further information on submitting testcases and implementation reports can be found from on the CSS Working Group’s website at https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/. Questions should be directed to the public-css-testsuite@w3.org mailing list.

Index

Terms defined by this specification

Terms defined by reference

References

Normative References

[CSS-ANIMATIONS-1]
Dean Jackson; et al. CSS Animations Level 1. 11 October 2018. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-animations-1/
[CSS-BACKGROUNDS-3]
Bert Bos; Elika Etemad; Brad Kemper. CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3. 26 July 2021. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-backgrounds-3/
[CSS-BOX-4]
Elika Etemad. CSS Box Model Module Level 4. 21 April 2020. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-box-4/
[CSS-CASCADE-5]
Elika Etemad; Miriam Suzanne; Tab Atkins Jr.. CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 5. 8 June 2021. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-cascade-5/
[CSS-COLOR-3]
Tantek Çelik; Chris Lilley; David Baron. CSS Color Module Level 3. 19 June 2018. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-3/
[CSS-COLOR-4]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Chris Lilley. CSS Color Module Level 4. 1 June 2021. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-4/
[CSS-COUNTER-STYLES-3]
Tab Atkins Jr.. CSS Counter Styles Level 3. 27 July 2021. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-counter-styles-3/
[CSS-DEVICE-ADAPT-1]
Rune Lillesveen; Florian Rivoal; Matt Rakow. CSS Device Adaptation Module Level 1. 29 March 2016. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-device-adapt-1/
[CSS-DISPLAY-3]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Elika Etemad. CSS Display Module Level 3. 18 December 2020. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-display-3/
[CSS-FONTS-4]
John Daggett; Myles Maxfield; Chris Lilley. CSS Fonts Module Level 4. 29 July 2021. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-fonts-4/
[CSS-LISTS-3]
Elika Etemad; Tab Atkins Jr.. CSS Lists and Counters Module Level 3. 17 November 2020. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-lists-3/
[CSS-LOGICAL-1]
Rossen Atanassov; Elika Etemad. CSS Logical Properties and Values Level 1. 27 August 2018. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-logical-1/
[CSS-NAMESPACES-3]
Elika Etemad. CSS Namespaces Module Level 3. 20 March 2014. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-namespaces-3/
[CSS-NESTING-1]
CSS Nesting Module Level 1 URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-nesting-1/
[CSS-OVERFLOW-3]
David Baron; Elika Etemad; Florian Rivoal. CSS Overflow Module Level 3. 3 June 2020. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-overflow-3/
[CSS-POSITION-3]
Elika Etemad; et al. CSS Positioned Layout Module Level 3. 19 May 2020. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-position-3/
[CSS-SCOPING-1]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Elika Etemad. CSS Scoping Module Level 1. 3 April 2014. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-scoping-1/
[CSS-SHADOW-PARTS-1]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Fergal Daly. CSS Shadow Parts. 15 November 2018. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-shadow-parts-1/
[CSS-SIZING-3]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Elika Etemad. CSS Box Sizing Module Level 3. 17 March 2021. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-sizing-3/
[CSS-UI-3]
Tantek Çelik; Florian Rivoal. CSS Basic User Interface Module Level 3 (CSS3 UI). 21 June 2018. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-ui-3/
[CSS-VALUES-4]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Elika Etemad. CSS Values and Units Module Level 4. 15 July 2021. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-values-4/
[CSS-VARIABLES-1]
Tab Atkins Jr.. CSS Custom Properties for Cascading Variables Module Level 1. 3 December 2015. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-variables-1/
[CSS21]
Bert Bos; et al. Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) Specification. 7 June 2011. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
[CSS3-CONDITIONAL]
David Baron; Elika Etemad; Chris Lilley. CSS Conditional Rules Module Level 3. 8 December 2020. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-conditional-3/
[CSS3CASCADE]
Elika Etemad; Tab Atkins Jr.. CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 3. 11 February 2021. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-cascade-3/
[CSS3PAGE]
Elika Etemad; Simon Sapin. CSS Paged Media Module Level 3. 18 October 2018. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-page-3/
[CSS3SYN]
Tab Atkins Jr.; Simon Sapin. CSS Syntax Module Level 3. 16 July 2019. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-syntax-3/
[DOM]
Anne van Kesteren. DOM Standard. Living Standard. URL: https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/
[ENCODING]
Anne van Kesteren. Encoding Standard. Living Standard. URL: https://encoding.spec.whatwg.org/
[FETCH]
Anne van Kesteren. Fetch Standard. Living Standard. URL: https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/
[HTML]
Anne van Kesteren; et al. HTML Standard. Living Standard. URL: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
[INFRA]
Anne van Kesteren; Domenic Denicola. Infra Standard. Living Standard. URL: https://infra.spec.whatwg.org/
[MEDIAQUERIES]
Florian Rivoal; Tab Atkins Jr.. Media Queries Level 4. 21 July 2020. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/mediaqueries-4/
[MEDIAQUERIES-5]
Dean Jackson; Florian Rivoal; Tab Atkins Jr.. Media Queries Level 5. 31 July 2020. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/mediaqueries-5/
[RFC2119]
S. Bradner. Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. March 1997. Best Current Practice. URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2119
[SELECTORS-3]
Tantek Çelik; et al. Selectors Level 3. 6 November 2018. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-3/
[SELECTORS-4]
Elika Etemad; Tab Atkins Jr.. Selectors Level 4. 21 November 2018. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-4/
[SVG2]
Amelia Bellamy-Royds; et al. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2. 4 October 2018. CR. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG2/
[URL]
Anne van Kesteren. URL Standard. Living Standard. URL: https://url.spec.whatwg.org/
[WebIDL]
Boris Zbarsky. Web IDL. 15 December 2016. ED. URL: https://heycam.github.io/webidl/
[XML]
Tim Bray; et al. Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition). 26 November 2008. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/
[XML-STYLESHEET]
James Clark; Simon Pieters; Henry Thompson. Associating Style Sheets with XML documents 1.0 (Second Edition). 28 October 2010. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet/

Informative References

[COMPAT]
Mike Taylor. Compatibility Standard. Living Standard. URL: https://compat.spec.whatwg.org/
[CSS-FONTS-5]
Myles Maxfield; Chris Lilley. CSS Fonts Module Level 5. 29 July 2021. WD. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-fonts-5/
[MathML-Core]
David Carlisle; Frédéric Wang. MathML Core. 2021. ED. URL: https://w3c.github.io/mathml-core/
[SVG11]
Erik Dahlström; et al. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition). 16 August 2011. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/

IDL Index

[Exposed=Window]
interface MediaList {
  stringifier attribute [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString mediaText;
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
  getter CSSOMString? item(unsigned long index);
  undefined appendMedium(CSSOMString medium);
  undefined deleteMedium(CSSOMString medium);
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface StyleSheet {
  readonly attribute CSSOMString type;
  readonly attribute USVString? href;
  readonly attribute (Element or ProcessingInstruction)? ownerNode;
  readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet? parentStyleSheet;
  readonly attribute DOMString? title;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=mediaText] readonly attribute MediaList media;
  attribute boolean disabled;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSStyleSheet : StyleSheet {
  constructor(optional CSSStyleSheetInit options = {});

  readonly attribute CSSRule? ownerRule;
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSRuleList cssRules;
  unsigned long insertRule(CSSOMString rule, optional unsigned long index = 0);
  undefined deleteRule(unsigned long index);

  Promise<CSSStyleSheet> replace(USVString text);
  undefined replaceSync(USVString text);
};

dictionary CSSStyleSheetInit {
  DOMString baseURL = null;
  (MediaList or DOMString) media = "";
  boolean disabled = false;
};

partial interface CSSStyleSheet {
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSRuleList rules;
  long addRule(optional DOMString selector = "undefined", optional DOMString style = "undefined", optional unsigned long index);
  undefined removeRule(optional unsigned long index = 0);
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface StyleSheetList {
  getter CSSStyleSheet? item(unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
};

partial interface mixin DocumentOrShadowRoot {
  [SameObject] readonly attribute StyleSheetList styleSheets;
  attribute ObservableArray<CSSStyleSheet> adoptedStyleSheets;
};

interface mixin LinkStyle {
  readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet? sheet;
};

ProcessingInstruction includes LinkStyle;
[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSRuleList {
  getter CSSRule? item(unsigned long index);
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSRule {
  attribute CSSOMString cssText;
  readonly attribute CSSRule? parentRule;
  readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet? parentStyleSheet;

  // the following attribute and constants are historical
  readonly attribute unsigned short type;
  const unsigned short STYLE_RULE = 1;
  const unsigned short CHARSET_RULE = 2;
  const unsigned short IMPORT_RULE = 3;
  const unsigned short MEDIA_RULE = 4;
  const unsigned short FONT_FACE_RULE = 5;
  const unsigned short PAGE_RULE = 6;
  const unsigned short MARGIN_RULE = 9;
  const unsigned short NAMESPACE_RULE = 10;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSStyleRule : CSSRule {
  attribute CSSOMString selectorText;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSImportRule : CSSRule {
  readonly attribute USVString href;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=mediaText] readonly attribute MediaList media;
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSStyleSheet styleSheet;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSGroupingRule : CSSRule {
  [SameObject] readonly attribute CSSRuleList cssRules;
  unsigned long insertRule(CSSOMString rule, optional unsigned long index = 0);
  undefined deleteRule(unsigned long index);
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSPageRule : CSSGroupingRule {
           attribute CSSOMString selectorText;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSMarginRule : CSSRule {
  readonly attribute CSSOMString name;
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSNamespaceRule : CSSRule {
  readonly attribute CSSOMString namespaceURI;
  readonly attribute CSSOMString prefix;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CSSStyleDeclaration {
  [CEReactions] attribute CSSOMString cssText;
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
  getter CSSOMString item(unsigned long index);
  CSSOMString getPropertyValue(CSSOMString property);
  CSSOMString getPropertyPriority(CSSOMString property);
  [CEReactions] undefined setProperty(CSSOMString property, [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString value, optional [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString priority = "");
  [CEReactions] CSSOMString removeProperty(CSSOMString property);
  readonly attribute CSSRule? parentRule;
  [CEReactions] attribute [LegacyNullToEmptyString] CSSOMString cssFloat;
};

interface mixin ElementCSSInlineStyle {
  [SameObject, PutForwards=cssText] readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style;
};

HTMLElement includes ElementCSSInlineStyle;

SVGElement includes ElementCSSInlineStyle;

MathMLElement includes ElementCSSInlineStyle;

partial interface Window {
  [NewObject] CSSStyleDeclaration getComputedStyle(Element elt, optional CSSOMString? pseudoElt);
};

[Exposed=Window]
namespace CSS {
  CSSOMString escape(CSSOMString ident);
};

Issues Index

This should probably be done in terms of mapping it to serializing CSS values as media features are defined in terms of CSS values after all.
Be more specific
Is there a document at this point?
What if the HTML parser hasn’t decided on quirks/non-quirks yet?
Need to define how the CSSFontFaceRule descriptors' values are serialized.
Need to define how CSSPageRule is serialized.
The "indented by two spaces" bit matches browsers, but needs work, see #5494
Need to define the rules for parse a list of CSS page selectors and serialize a list of CSS page selectors.
Should we add something like "Any observable side effect must not be made outside declarations"? The current constraints sound like a hole for undefined behavior.
Probably should distinguish between specified and computed / resolved values.
Should author specified values be normalized for case, the same as computed values? Or should original case be preserved?
Probably should distinguish between specified and computed / resolved values.
Probably should distinguish between specified and computed / resolved values.
This should differentiate specified and computed <url> values, see #3195.
One idea is that we can remove this section somewhere in the CSS3/CSS4 timeline by moving the above definitions to the drafts that define the CSS components.
Some of these need to be updated per the new rules.
There are UAs that handle shorthands, and all UAs handle shorthands that used to be longhands like overflow, see #2529.
Order of custom properties is currently undefined, see #4947.
Should getComputedStyle() provide a useful serialization? See #1033
This was previously specified as an IDL interface that only held static methods. Switching to an IDL namespace is *nearly* identical, so it’s expected that there won’t be any compat concerns. If any are discovered, please report so we can consider reverting this change.