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What is the difference between HTML div and span elements?


I would like to ask for some simple examples showing the uses of <div> and <span>. I've seen them both used to mark a section of a page with an id or class, but I'm interested in knowing if there are times when one is preferred over the other.


Solution

  • This means that to use them semantically, divs should be used to wrap sections of a document, while spans should be used to wrap small portions of text, images, etc.

    For example:

    <div>This a large main division, with <span>a small bit</span> of spanned text!</div>
    

    Note that it is illegal to place a block-level element within an inline element, so:

    <div>Some <span>text that <div>I want</div> to mark</span> up</div>
    

    ...is illegal.


    EDIT: As of HTML5, some block elements can be placed inside of some inline elements. See the MDN reference here for a pretty clear listing. The above is still illegal, as <span> only accepts phrasing content, and <div> is flow content.


    You asked for some concrete examples, so is one taken from my bowling website, BowlSK:

    <div id="header">
      <div id="userbar">
        Hi there, <span class="username">Chris Marasti-Georg</span> |
        <a href="/edit-profile.html">Profile</a> |
        <a href="https://www.bowlsk.com/_ah/logout?...">Sign out</a>
      </div>
      <h1><a href="/">Bowl<span class="sk">SK</span></a></h1>
    </div>

    Ok, what's going on?

    At the top of my page, I have a logical section, the "header". Since this is a section, I use a div (with an appropriate id). Within that, I have a couple of sections: the user bar and the actual page title. The title uses the appropriate tag, h1. The userbar, being a section, is wrapped in a div. Within that, the username is wrapped in a span, so that I can change the style. As you can see, I have also wrapped a span around 2 letters in the title - this allows me to change their color in my stylesheet.

    Also note that HTML5 includes a broad new set of elements that define common page structures, such as article, section, nav, etc.

    Section 4.4 of the HTML 5 working draft lists them and gives hints as to their usage. HTML5 is still a working spec, so nothing is "final" yet, but it is highly doubtful that any of these elements are going anywhere. There is a javascript hack that you will need to use if you want to style these elements in some older version of IE - You need to create one of each element using document.createElement before any of those elements are specified in your source. There are a bunch of libraries that will take care of this for you - a quick Google search turned up html5shiv.