w3c / w3c/csswg-drafts

[css-conditional-4] Reconsider disabling unforgiving parsing in `selector()`

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css-conditional-4
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Description

It has been resolved to disable forgiving parsing in selector(). The initial motivation was to add styles based on user agent restrictions on :has() argument, which was previously <forgiving-relative-selector-list> but is now <relative-selector-list>.

Outdated browser interoperability issue

Chrome and FF seem to disagree on forgiving invalid selectors in selector(): in the following test case, text is red, not underlined in Chrome, and is neither red or underlined in FF.

<style>
  @supports selector(:is(undeclared|div)) { /* Forgiving :is() */
    div { color: red }
  }
  @supports selector(:not(undeclared|div)) { /* Unforgiving :not() */
    div { text-decoration: underline }
  }
</style>
<div>text</div>

Also, should selector(:is()) evaluate to true or false? Chrome and FF also disagree on this.

I do not have a strong opinion but I find it a bit surprising that selector(:is(::before, div)) must evaluate to false whereas :is(::before, div) selects any div. If the author wants to test the support of pseudo-elements, he can write selector(::pseudo) or selector(:not(::pseudo, ::another-pseudo)).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Read the resolution in w3c/csswg-drafts issue 7280 and the CSS Conditional Rules Level 4 selector() definition linked here. Review the outdated interoperability example only to understand the original concern; this issue is done only if the specification's parsing behavior has an agreed resolution.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
css
Domain
web-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

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