div (HTML element)
| Depr. | Empty | Version |
|---|---|---|
| No | No | HTML 3.2 |
| IE5.5+ | FF1+ | Saf1.3+ | Op9.2+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full | Full | Full | Full |
Example
The HTML below shows two
divs being used in conjunction with
id attributes to identify different sections of a
web page:
<div id="main_navigation"> ⋮ </div> <div id="body_content"> <h1>Page heading</h1> <p>Body content</p> </div>
- Type
- block-level element
- Contains
- all block level elements, all inline elements
- Contained by
applet,blockquote,body,button,center,dd,del,div,fieldset,form,iframe,ins,li,map,noframes,noscript,object,td,th
Description
The div is a
generic block-level element. It doesn’t convey any meaning about its
contents (unlike a p element that signifies a
paragraph, or an h1 or h2 element
that would indicate a level 1 or level 2 heading, respectively); as such,
it’s easy to customize it to your needs. The div
element is currently the most common method for identifying the structural
sections of a document and for laying out a web page using CSS.
Some developers perceive similarities between
the p and the div elements, seeing
them as being interchangeable, but this isn’t the case. The
p element offers more semantic information (“this is a
paragraph of text, a small collection of thoughts that are grouped
together; the next paragraph outlines some different thoughts”), while the
div element can be used to group almost any elements
together. Indeed, it can contain almost any other element, unlike
p, which can only contain inline elements.
Use This For …
The div is
an “anything-goes” element—it can contain any inline or block-level
elements you choose, so it has no typical content.
Compatibility
| IE | 5.5 | Full |
|---|---|---|
| 6.0 | Full | |
| 7.0 | Full | |
| Firefox | 1.0 | Full |
| 1.5 | Full | |
| 2.0 | Full | |
| Safari | 1.3 | Full |
| 2.0 | Full | |
| 3.0 | Full | |
| Opera | 9.2 | Full |
| 9.5 | Full |
This element has no
compatibility issues. All the browsers listed support the
div element.
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