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- # css-select [![NPM version](http://img.shields.io/npm/v/css-select.svg)](https://npmjs.org/package/css-select) [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/fb55/css-select.svg?branch=master)](http://travis-ci.org/fb55/css-select) [![Downloads](https://img.shields.io/npm/dm/css-select.svg)](https://npmjs.org/package/css-select) [![Coverage](https://coveralls.io/repos/fb55/css-select/badge.svg?branch=master)](https://coveralls.io/r/fb55/css-select)
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- a CSS selector compiler/engine
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- ## What?
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- css-select turns CSS selectors into functions that tests if elements match them. When searching for elements, testing is executed "from the top", similar to how browsers execute CSS selectors.
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- In its default configuration, css-select queries the DOM structure of the [`domhandler`](https://github.com/fb55/domhandler) module (also known as htmlparser2 DOM).
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- __Features:__
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- - Full implementation of CSS3 selectors
- - Partial implementation of jQuery/Sizzle extensions
- - Very high test coverage
- - Pretty good performance
-
- ## Why?
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- The traditional approach of executing CSS selectors, named left-to-right execution, is to execute every component of the selector in order, from left to right _(duh)_. The execution of the selector `a b` for example will first query for `a` elements, then search these for `b` elements. (That's the approach of eg. [`Sizzle`](https://github.com/jquery/sizzle), [`nwmatcher`](https://github.com/dperini/nwmatcher/) and [`qwery`](https://github.com/ded/qwery).)
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- While this works, it has some downsides: Children of `a`s will be checked multiple times; first, to check if they are also `a`s, then, for every superior `a` once, if they are `b`s. Using [Big O notation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation), that would be `O(n^(k+1))`, where `k` is the number of descendant selectors (that's the space in the example above).
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- The far more efficient approach is to first look for `b` elements, then check if they have superior `a` elements: Using big O notation again, that would be `O(n)`. That's called right-to-left execution.
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- And that's what css-select does – and why it's quite performant.
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- ## How does it work?
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- By building a stack of functions.
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- _Wait, what?_
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- Okay, so let's suppose we want to compile the selector `a b` again, for right-to-left execution. We start by _parsing_ the selector, which means we turn the selector into an array of the building-blocks of the selector, so we can distinguish them easily. That's what the [`css-what`](https://github.com/fb55/css-what) module is for, if you want to have a look.
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- Anyway, after parsing, we end up with an array like this one:
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- ```js
- [
- { type: 'tag', name: 'a' },
- { type: 'descendant' },
- { type: 'tag', name: 'b' }
- ]
- ```
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- Actually, this array is wrapped in another array, but that's another story (involving commas in selectors).
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- Now that we know the meaning of every part of the selector, we can compile it. That's where it becomes interesting.
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- The basic idea is to turn every part of the selector into a function, which takes an element as its only argument. The function checks whether a passed element matches its part of the selector: If it does, the element is passed to the next turned-into-a-function part of the selector, which does the same. If an element is accepted by all parts of the selector, it _matches_ the selector and double rainbow ALL THE WAY.
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- As said before, we want to do right-to-left execution with all the big O improvements nonsense, so elements are passed from the rightmost part of the selector (`b` in our example) to the leftmost (~~which would be `c`~~ of course `a`).
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- _//TODO: More in-depth description. Implementation details. Build a spaceship._
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- ## API
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- ```js
- var CSSselect = require("css-select");
- ```
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- #### `CSSselect(query, elems, options)`
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- Queries `elems`, returns an array containing all matches.
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- - `query` can be either a CSS selector or a function.
- - `elems` can be either an array of elements, or a single element. If it is an element, its children will be queried.
- - `options` is described below.
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- Aliases: `CSSselect.selectAll(query, elems)`, `CSSselect.iterate(query, elems)`.
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- #### `CSSselect.compile(query)`
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- Compiles the query, returns a function.
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- #### `CSSselect.is(elem, query, options)`
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- Tests whether or not an element is matched by `query`. `query` can be either a CSS selector or a function.
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- #### `CSSselect.selectOne(query, elems, options)`
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- Arguments are the same as for `CSSselect(query, elems)`. Only returns the first match, or `null` if there was no match.
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- ### Options
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- - `xmlMode`: When enabled, tag names will be case-sensitive. Default: `false`.
- - `strict`: Limits the module to only use CSS3 selectors. Default: `false`.
- - `rootFunc`: The last function in the stack, will be called with the last element that's looked at. Should return `true`.
-
- ## Supported selectors
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- _As defined by CSS 4 and / or jQuery._
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- * Universal (`*`)
- * Tag (`<tagname>`)
- * Descendant (` `)
- * Child (`>`)
- * Parent (`<`) *
- * Sibling (`+`)
- * Adjacent (`~`)
- * Attribute (`[attr=foo]`), with supported comparisons:
- * `[attr]` (existential)
- * `=`
- * `~=`
- * `|=`
- * `*=`
- * `^=`
- * `$=`
- * `!=` *
- * Also, `i` can be added after the comparison to make the comparison case-insensitive (eg. `[attr=foo i]`) *
- * Pseudos:
- * `:not`
- * `:contains` *
- * `:icontains` * (case-insensitive version of `:contains`)
- * `:has` *
- * `:root`
- * `:empty`
- * `:parent` *
- * `:[first|last]-child[-of-type]`
- * `:only-of-type`, `:only-child`
- * `:nth-[last-]child[-of-type]`
- * `:link`, `:visited` (the latter doesn't match any elements)
- * `:selected` *, `:checked`
- * `:enabled`, `:disabled`
- * `:required`, `:optional`
- * `:header`, `:button`, `:input`, `:text`, `:checkbox`, `:file`, `:password`, `:reset`, `:radio` etc. *
- * `:matches` *
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- __*__: Not part of CSS3
-
- ---
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- License: BSD-like
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