Different Levels of CSS and The Priority Over Each Other

Can one CSS file take priority over another CSS file?

It depends on how you set them in your header. So something like this will work:

<link rel="old stylesheet" href="path/to/style.css" />
<link rel="newer stylesheet" href="path/to/style.css" />
<link rel="newest stylesheet" href="path/to/style.css" />

The last one will be picked up.

And an helpful link about stylesheets here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/styles.html#h-14.3.2

See also: Precedence in CSS if the above doesn't work for you.

Hope it is clear.

What is the order of precedence for CSS?

There are several rules ( applied in this order ) :

1. inline css ( html style attribute ) overrides css rules in style tag and css file
2. a more specific selector takes precedence over a less specific one
3. rules that appear later in the code override earlier rules if both have the same specificity.
4. A css rule with !important always takes precedence.

In your case its rule 3 that applies.

Specificity for single selectors from highest to lowest:

• ids (example: #main selects <div id="main">)
• classes (ex.: .myclass), attribute selectors (ex.: [href=^https:]) and pseudo-classes (ex.: :hover)
• elements (ex.: div) and pseudo-elements (ex.: ::before)

To compare the specificity of two combined selectors, compare the number of occurences of single selectors of each of the specificity groups above.

Example: compare #nav ul li a:hover to #nav ul li.active a::after

• count the number of id selectors: there is one for each (#nav)
• count the number of class selectors: there is one for each (:hover and .active)
• count the number of element selectors: there are 3 (ul li a) for the first and 4 for the second (ul li a ::after), thus the second combined selector is more specific.

A good article about css selector specificity.

CSS which takes precedence, inline or the class?

Generally speaking we can say that all the styles will "cascade" into a new "virtual" style sheet by the following rules, where number three has the highest priority:

1. Browser default
2. Embedded and external stylesheets. Later has precedence over earlier. There IS NOT any inherent difference between embedded and external.
3. Inline style (inside an HTML element)

Source (Edit: of original incorrect information, since corrected both here and there): w3schools

W3schools explains a lot about CSS and also goes through and shows examples of most things you can do with CSS. Always a good resource if you have questions about something. (Edit: debatable, they were the source of the original wrong answer.)

CSS style priority

EDITED to your scenario (used background color for better illustration, you can simply replace them for position):

#courseList>li:nth-child(2n+1) {  background: red;}
#courseList>li:nth-child(2n+2) {  background: green;}

<ul id="courseList">  <li></li>  <li></li>  <li></li>  <li></li>  <li></li>  <li style='background: blue;'>    <div></div>  </li></ul>

Relating the use of multiple type of style sheets in a single web page

The element doesn't have inline style (which would be supplied by a style attribute, not a height or width attribute). It is presentational HTML attributes.

CSS always overrides presentational HTML attributes.

More important than !important (a higher level !important)?

No, there is no keyword or other way to make a declaration more important than !important. There is no known activity to change this.

In general, it is possible to override a declaration that has !important by using a rule that also has it and that has higher specificity. However, a declaration in a style attribute has, by definition, higher specificity than any other author declaration. The only way to defeat it is in CSS is to use a user style sheet with !important.

There are non-CSS solutions, but they are rather obvious, such as using JavaScript to simply remove or modify the style attribute.

What are the priorities among CSS selectors

The gory details in the spec are actually reasonably readable. In summary:

1. !important rules and inline style rules win most.

2. Otherwise, normally the more specific wins. #id is a more specific selector than .classname is a more specific selector than tagname.

3. Where rules are equally specific, the one declared last wins.

There is no particular reason why this ‘shouldn't happen’. It's normal to specify a broad-brush rule and then add a more specific rule to target one case; multiple same-property rules on a single element are not unusual or undesirable.

---

Related Topics