Sidebar not reaching to bottom of content div

Question

I have a div called content and within that div is a div called sidebar. I want the sidebar to stretch to the bottom of the content div, but it's not. Here's the relevant markup and CSS:

<div id="content">
    <div id="sidebar">
        <ul>
            <li><a href="/register">Register</a></li>
            <li><a href="/login">Login</a></li>
            <li><a href="/forgotpass">Forgotten password</a></li>
        </ul>
    </div>
    <form action="login" method="post" id="main-form">
        <p class="p-username">
            <label for="username">Username</label>
            <?php echo form_error('username'); ?>
            <input original-title="Alphanumeric characters, underscores and dashes" type="text" name="username" value="<?php echo set_value('username') ?>">
        </p>
        <p class="p-password">
            <label for="password">Password</label>
            <?php if(isset($error)): ?>
                <span class="error"><?php echo $error ?></span>
            <?php else: ?>
                <?php echo form_error('password'); ?>
            <?php endif; ?>
            <input original-title="Please choose a strong password" type="password" name="password">
        </p>
        <p>
            <input type="submit" class="primary-button" value="Log in">
        </p>
    </form>
    <div class="clear"></div>
</div>

CSS:

#content {
    width: 960px;
    border: 1px solid #e7e7e7;
    margin-top: 10px;
    border-radius: 5px;
}

#sidebar {
    width: 250px;
    background: #f5f8fa;
    float: left;
    height: 100%;
    border-right: 1px solid #e0eefb;
    box-shadow: inset -5px 0px 4px -2px #e8f1f9;
    margin-right: 10px;
}

#sidebar ul {
    margin:; 0;
    padding: 0;
    list-style-type: none;
}

#sidebar ul li {
    line-height: 40px;
}

#sidebar ul li a {
    display: block;
    width: inherit;
    padding-left: 20px;
    text-decoration: none;
    font-size: 16px;
}

And a jsFiddle link: http://jsfiddle.net/QXfH3/

as you can see, the sidebar stops after the last list item. I want it to stretch to the bottom of the content div. I thought adding height: 100% would do it but apparently not. height: inherit does nothing aswell.

Thanks.

Answer 1

A way to achieve this, is to set a background image for #content which is for #sidebar:

#content {
    background: url(data:image/png;base64,[BASE64-DATA]) repeat-y; /* background-image for #sidebar */
}

remove background, border-right and box-shadow from #sidebar:

#sidebar {
    width: 250px;
    /* background: #f5f8fa; */
    float: left;
    height: 100%;
    /* border-right: 1px solid #e0eefb;
    box-shadow: inset -5px 0px 4px -2px #e8f1f9; */
    margin-right: 10px;
}

and wrap the whole content for the right column into a div (in this example #right) and apply this style: #right { display: inline-block }

This way, you don't have to care about how much content you're putting in there ;)

Live demo: http://jsfiddle.net/QXfH3/5/

If you don't want to use images, to get this illusion, the answer from Alvaro seems to be the best way