usage of * symbol in css

Question

I found some stylesheets using * symbol on it. for example *zoom: 1; what does the * symbol stands. sometimes which appears like [class*="span"] this. can anybody clear me the usage of the symbol * in css

Answer 1

*zoom is a hack that applies it ie6 and ie7. * { } is a wildcard (matches all elements or subset; if used like #header * it would apply to all descendants of #header). [class*="span"] matches elements that have a class with the word "span" anywhere.