Is there a CSS selector for elements containing certain text?

I am looking for a CSS selector for the following table:

Peter    | male    | 34
Susanne  | female  | 12

Is there any selector to match all TDs containing "male"?

If I read http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#selectors">the specification correctly, no.

You can match on an element, the name of an attribute in the element, and the value of a named attribute in an element. I don't see anything for matching content within an element, though.

Looks like they were thinking about it for the CSS3 spec but it didn't make the cut.

:contains() CSS3 selector http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#content-selectors

Using jQuery:

$('td:contains("male")')

You'd have to add a data attribute to the rows called data-gender with a male or female value and use the attribute selector:

HTML:

<td data-gender="male">...</td>

CSS:

td[data-gender="male"] { ... }

There is actually a very conceptual basis for why this hasn't been implemented. It is a combination of basically 3 aspects:

1. The text content of an element is effectively a child of that element
2. You cannot target the text content directly
3. CSS does not allow for ascension with selectors

These 3 together mean that by the time you have the text content you cannot ascend back to the containing element, and you cannot style the present text. This is likely significant as descending only allows for a singular tracking of context and SAX style parsing. Ascending or other selectors involving other axes introduce the need for more complex traversal or similar solutions that would greatly complicate the application of CSS to the DOM.

You could set content as data attribute and then use attribute selectors, as shown here:

/* Select every cell matching the word "male" */
td[data-content="male"] {
  color: red;
}

/* Select every cell starting on "p" case insensitive */
td[data-content^="p" i] {
  color: blue;
}

/* Select every cell containing "4" */
td[data-content*="4"] {
  color: green;
}

<table>
  <tr>
    <td data-content="Peter">Peter</td>
    <td data-content="male">male</td>
    <td data-content="34">34</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td data-content="Susanne">Susanne</td>
    <td data-content="female">female</td>
    <td data-content="14">14</td>
  </tr>
</table>

You can also use jQuery to easily set the data-content attributes:

$(function(){
  $("td").each(function(){
    var $this = $(this);
    $this.attr("data-content", $this.text());
  });
});

As CSS lacks this feature you will have to use JavaScript to style cells by content. For example with XPath's contains:

var elms = document.evaluate( "//td[contains(., 'male')]", node, null, XPathResult.UNORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null )

Then use the result like so:

for ( var i=0 ; i < elms.snapshotLength; i++ ){
   elms.snapshotItem(i).style.background = "pink";
}

https://jsfiddle.net/gaby_de_wilde/o7bka7Ls/9/

As of Jan 2021, there IS something that will do just this. :has() ... only one catch: this is not supported in any browser yet

Example: The following selector matches only elements that directly contain an child:

a:has(> img)

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:has

https://caniuse.com/?search=has

I'm afraid this is not possible, because the content is no attribute nor is it accessible via a pseudo class. The full list of CSS3 selectors can be found in the CSS3 specification.

For those who are looking to do Selenium CSS text selections, this script might be of some use.

The trick is to select the parent of the element that you are looking for, and then search for the child that has the text:

public static IWebElement FindByText(this IWebDriver driver, string text)
{
    var list = driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector("#RiskAddressList"));
    var element = ((IJavaScriptExecutor)driver).ExecuteScript(string.Format(" var x = $(arguments[0]).find(\":contains('{0}')\"); return x;", text), list);
    return ((System.Collections.ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection<IWebElement>)element)[0];
}

This will return the first element if there is more than one since it's always one element, in my case.

I agree the data attribute (voyager's answer) is how it should be handled, BUT, CSS rules like:

td.male { color: blue; }
td.female { color: pink; }

can often be much easier to set up, especially with client-side libs like angularjs which could be as simple as:

<td class="{{person.gender}}">

Just make sure that the content is only one word! Or you could even map to different CSS class names with:

<td ng-class="{'masculine': person.isMale(), 'feminine': person.isFemale()}">

For completeness, here's the data attribute approach:

<td data-gender="{{person.gender}}">

If you're using Chimp / Webdriver.io, they support a lot more CSS selectors than the CSS spec.

This, for example, will click on the first anchor that contains the words "Bad bear":

browser.click("a*=Bad Bear");

If you don't create the DOM yourself (e.g. in a userscript) you can do the following with pure JS:

for ( td of document.querySelectorAll('td') ) {
  console.debug("text:", td, td.innerText)
  td.setAttribute('text', td.innerText)
}
for ( td of document.querySelectorAll('td[text="male"]') )
  console.debug("male:", td, td.innerText)

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>Peter</td>
    <td>male</td>
    <td>34</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Susanne</td>
    <td>female</td>
    <td>12</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Console output

text: <td> Peter
text: <td> male
text: <td> 34
text: <td> Susanne
text: <td> female
text: <td> 12
male: <td text="male"> male

@voyager's answer about using data-* attribute (e.g. data-gender="female|male" is the most effective and standards compliant approach as of 2017:

[data-gender='male'] {background-color: #000; color: #ccc;}

Pretty much most goals can be attained as there are some albeit limited selectors oriented around text. The ::first-letter is a pseudo-element that can apply limited styling to the first letter of an element. There is also a ::first-line pseudo-element besides obviously selecting the first line of an element (such as a paragraph) also implies that it is obvious that CSS could be used to extend this existing capability to style specific aspects of a textNode.

Until such advocacy succeeds and is implemented the next best thing I could suggest when applicable is to explode/split words using a space deliminator, output each individual word inside of a span element and then if the word/styling goal is predictable use in combination with :nth selectors:

$p = explode(' ',$words);
foreach ($p as $key1 => $value1)
{
 echo '<span>'.$value1.'</span>;
}

Else if not predictable to, again, use voyager's answer about using data-* attribute. An example using PHP:

$p = explode(' ',$words);
foreach ($p as $key1 => $value1)
{
 echo '<span data-word="'.$value1.'">'.$value1.'</span>;
}

Most of the answers here try to offer alternative to how to write the HTML code to include more data because at least up to CSS3 you cannot select an element by partial inner text. But it can be done, you just need to add a bit of vanilla JavaScript, notice since female also contains male it will be selected:

      cells = document.querySelectorAll('td');
    	console.log(cells);
      [].forEach.call(cells, function (el) {
    	if(el.innerText.indexOf("male") !== -1){
    	//el.click(); click or any other option
    	console.log(el)
    	}
    });

 <table>
      <tr>
        <td>Peter</td>
        <td>male</td>
        <td>34</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Susanne</td>
        <td>female</td>
        <td>14</td>
      </tr>
    </table>

<table>
  <tr>
    <td data-content="Peter">Peter</td>
    <td data-content="male">male</td>
    <td data-content="34">34</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td data-conten="Susanne">Susanne</td>
    <td data-content="female">female</td>
    <td data-content="14">14</td>
  </tr>
</table>

If you want to apply style to the content you want. Easy trick.

    td { border: 1px solid black; }
    td:empty { background: lime; }
    td:empty::after { content: "male"; }

    <table>
      <tr>
        <td>Peter</td>
        <td><!--male--></td>
        <td>34</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Susanne</td>
        <td>female</td>
        <td>14</td>
      </tr>
    </table>

https://jsfiddle.net/hyda8kqz/

I find the attribute option to be your best bet if you don't want to use javascript or jquery.

E.g to style all table cells with the word ready, In HTML do this:

 <td status*="ready">Ready</td>

Then in css:

td[status*="ready"] {
        color: red;
    }

Doing small Filter Widgets like this:

    var searchField = document.querySelector('HOWEVER_YOU_MAY_FIND_IT')
    var faqEntries = document.querySelectorAll('WRAPPING_ELEMENT .entry')

    searchField.addEventListener('keyup', function (evt) {
        var testValue = evt.target.value.toLocaleLowerCase();
        var regExp = RegExp(testValue);

        faqEntries.forEach(function (entry) {
            var text = entry.textContent.toLocaleLowerCase();

            entry.classList.remove('show', 'hide');

            if (regExp.test(text)) {
                entry.classList.add('show')
            } else {
                entry.classList.add('hide')
            }
        })
    })

The syntax of this question looks like Robot Framework syntax. In this case, although there is no css selector that you can use for contains, there is a SeleniumLibrary keyword that you can use instead. The Wait Until Element Contains.

Example:

Wait Until Element Contains  | ${element} | ${contains}
Wait Until Element Contains  |  td | male