Consider the following html:
<div> <div class="iwant" /> <div class="idontwant" /> </div> <div> <div class="iwant" /> </div> I'm interested in a selector (for crawling content so I can't modify html) that would select all iwant that DO NOT have sibling with class idontwant.
There is no sibling selector to match elements (or not) by class.
The closest selector I can think of is
.iwant:only-child But this selector means that there cannot be any other elements besides that div class="iwant" as children of the parent div, regardless of type or class. This may fulfill your need depending on the structure of your HTML though, so it's worth a try. If class names are a problem for you, though, then there probably isn't much of a solution, because there isn't an :only-of-class pseudo-class in CSS which filters by class and ignores the rest.
divs. Good thinking though.If anyone still needs this, I found this answer . Based on it and on :not pseudo-class, the initial requirement can be accomplished using something like:
div:not(:has(+ .idontwant)) .iwant { ... } This approach has an advantage over the general sibling combinator: It also matches backwards, meaning something like:
<div> <div class="idontwant" /> <div class="iwant" /> </div> (so if you have the .idontwant element first -> case which would be ignored by the general sibling combinator)
Explanation:
div:has(+ .idontwant) would match any div that has a direct sibling with the class idontwantdiv:not(:has(+ .idontwant)) matches any div that doesn't have a direct sibling with class idontwantidontwant for the class we want.The selector is quite weird and big, but it does the job, and I think there are (specific) cases where it is quite needed.
Edit (from comments): If anyone needs to style an element only if it has a specific sibling (or if it doesn't) you can still use the :has Pseudo-class to accomplish it (check snippet):
const toogleHasClassEl = document.getElementById("toogleHasClass") toogleHasClassEl.onclick = () => toogleHasClassEl.classList.toggle("specificclass")div:has(.specificclass) .stylethis { background: orange } div:not(:has(.specificclass)) .stylethis { background: yellow } div:has(.stylethis) .specificclass { background: red }<div> <div class="stylethis">style this</div> <div id="toogleHasClass" class="specificclass">if this has `specificclass` class (click to toggle)</div> </div> <hr/> <div> <div class="stylethis">style this different</div> <div class="thisdoesnthaveclass">if this doesn't have specific class</div> </div> <hr/> <div> <div class="stylethis">style this different (if alone and therefore doesn't have specific sibling)</div> </div>
.idontwant based on the presence of .iwant. That seems slightly more complicated, more like impossible. It seems that for some reason you are able to select an next sibling but not a previous sibling.
+ from the the :has() and it works. Now I have to find where I used Js to solve this issue an implement this instead, thanks!There's no negative-sibling CSS selector. Use the sibling selector to set new styles, then reset the styles at the .idontwant:
div.iwant { /*Set CSS here*/ display: inline; } div.iwant ~ div.idontwant { /*Reset CSS*/ display: block /* Default of DIV is block*/ } 
div.iwant ~ div.idontwant selector is more specific than div.iwant.There's no good way to target an item without a specific sibling item. But you can use .iwant:last-child to target items that doesn't have a subsequent sibling.
This also might be helpful - if the element you want is always last-child:
div:last-child:not(.idontwant) { } 