Explain Nesting and Grouping in CSS


In web designing, it is important for the developers to write short and precise codes which are easy to run. Lengthy codes are always disadvantageous for the developers because it increases the load time for the web page and hence the readability of the website becomes low. Also, it becomes a difficult task for the developer to debug the codes.

CSS offers facilities like nesting and grouping which enables the developers to write precise codes. It helps to keep the codes specific and readable. Also, since the length of the code is decreased, the runtime and hence, the loading time of the pages will decrease which attracts user’s attention. This increases the readability of your website. In this article, we will discuss about the concept of nesting and grouping in CSS.

Nesting in CSS

The nesting property in CSS enables the developers to nest one specific style rule within another, with the child rule's selector relative to the parent rule's selector.

Syntax

class1_selector class2_selector id_selector{
   CSS declarations;
}

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title>Nesting in CSS</title>
   <style>
      *{
         text-align: center;
      }
      h1{
         color: #00FF00;
         text-decoration: underline;
      }
      p span{
         color: blue;
         font-size: 18px;
         letter-spacing: 1px;
         font-weight: bold;
         font-family: cursive;
      }
   </style>
</head>
<body>
   <h1>Tutorialspoint</h1>
   <h2>Computer Programming</h2>
   <p>The process of carrying out a given computation (or, more broadly, achieving a specified computing result) through the design and construction of an executable computer programme is known as computer programming. Analysis, algorithm generation, resource use profiling, and algorithm implementation are some of the duties involved in programming (usually in a chosen programming language, commonly referred to as coding). <span> Instead of being written in machine code, which is immediately executed by the CPU, a programme is written in one or more languages that are understandable to programmers. </span> Finding a set of instructions that will automate the completion of a task—which may be as complicated as an operating system—on a computer is the goal of programming, which is frequently done to address a specific issue.</p>
</body>
</html>

Advantages of Nesting in CSS

Following are the major advantages of Nesting –

  • Nesting helps in creating more modular and maintainable stylesheets. Rather than having the same selector in multiple places in a stylesheet, you can group all styles related to that selector in one place. This will drastically reduce development and debugging time. For instance, if you design an organised CSS module, you may simply give attributes to selections within other selects rather of giving distinct selectors for each HTML element, such as by utilising various classes or ID selectors.

  • It enables the nesting of media queries. Nesting eliminates the requirement for a distinct media query rule for each selection. This can be added immediately where the selector was declared.

  • When CSS attributes are nested within HTML components, a tree-like shape result. CSS rules for a large number of selections for a single property may be swiftly created using the nesting approach. Therefore, we can simply stack selectors inside of other selectors rather than replicating the same set of characteristics for each selector. As a consequence, we are cutting down on both the quantity of code and the loading time as a whole.

Grouping in CSS

To pick and style many elements simultaneously, use the CSS grouping selector. The amount of code and work needed to create standard styles for each element is reduced as a result. To group them, a space is used between each selection.

Syntax

selector1, selector2, selector3…...selectorN {
   CSS declarations;
}

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
   <title> Grouping in CSS </title>
   <style>
      *{
         text-align: center;
      }
      h1{
         color: #00FF00;
         text-decoration: underline;
      }
      h2{
         color: red;
      }
      h1, h2{
         font-family: Times New Roman, sans-serif;
         letter-spacing: 1px;
         font-weight: 900;
      }
      h2, p{
         margin: 5px;
         padding: 10px 5px 10px 10px;
      }
   </style>
</head>
<body>
   <h1>Tutorialspoint</h1>
   <h2>Computer Programming</h2>
   <p>The process of carrying out a given computation (or, more broadly, achieving a specified computing result) through the design and construction of an executable computer programme is known as computer programming. Analysis, algorithm generation, resource use profiling, and algorithm implementation are some of the duties involved in programming (usually in a chosen programming language, commonly referred to as coding). Instead of being written in machine code, which is immediately executed by the CPU, a programme is written in one or more languages that are understandable to programmers. Finding a set of instructions that will automate the completion of a task—which may be as complicated as an operating system—on a computer is the goal of programming, which is frequently done to address a specific issue. </p>
</body>
</html>

Advantages of Grouping in CSS

Following are the advantages of grouping in CSS –

  • It helps to shorten code that contains numerous selectors with the same characteristics. This makes it easier to read the code. When using grouping, both page load times and code development time are lowered.

  • If there is an error in the code, you can easily make changes in one selector and it will be applied to all the selectors grouped together.

Difference between Nesting and Grouping

Nesting

Grouping

With the nesting feature, you may nest one style rule within another, with the child rule's selector being related to the parent rule's selector.

With the grouping feature, several selectors are given the same properties and values at once.

Nesting is a technique for managing and simplifying the attributes of numerous items at once, however if more elements are nested with the same values, it may become troublesome. It could be difficult to control a nesting feature like that.

Applying the characteristics to several distinct components at once using grouping is straightforward and manageable.

If we need to edit a property in CSS for a specific element, such as a parent or child element, we must do so manually for that element in case of nesting.

While for grouping, we just need to modify styles for one selector and it will be applied to other selectors which are grouped together.

Conclusion

Although you can always list your CSS styles separately, remember that grouping styles together saves space and compartmentalizes the selectors. Things are kept organized by grouping. Nesting will aid in the modularization and maintenance of style sheets. This is due to nesting, which allows all styles associated with a selector, children/parent selectors, and even media queries to be nested in the same location.

Updated on: 20-Feb-2023

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