Complex CSS selector for parent of active child [duplicate]

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there's no way to do that with CSS.

It's not very difficult with JavaScript though:

// JavaScript code:
document.getElementsByClassName("active")[0].parentNode;

// jQuery code:
$('.active').parent().get(0); // This would be the <a>'s parent <li>.

Answer 2

Many people answered with jQuery parent, but just to add on to that I wanted to share a quick snippet of code that I use for adding classes to my navs so I can add styling to li's that only have sub-menus and not li's that don't.

$("li ul").parent().addClass('has-sub');

Answer 3

Late to the party again but for what it's worth it is possible using jQuery to be a little more succinct. In my case I needed to find the <ul> parent tag for a <span> tag contained in the child <li>. jQuery has the :has selector so it's possible to identify a parent by the children it contains (updated per @Afrowave's comment ref: https://api.jquery.com/has-selector/):

$("ul").has("#someId")

will select the ul element that has a child element with id someId. Or to answer the original question, something like the following should do the trick (untested):

$("li").has(".active")

Answer 4

Future answer with CSS4 selectors

New CSS Specs contain an experimental :has pseudo selector that might be able to do this thing.

li:has(a:active) {
  /* ... */
}

The browser support on this is basically non-existent at this time, but it is in consideration on the official specs.

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Answer in 2012 that was wrong in 2012 and is even more wrong in 2018

While it is true that CSS cannot ASCEND, it is incorrect that you cannot grab the parent element of another element. Let me reiterate:

Using your HTML example code, you are able to grab the li without specifying li

ul * a {
    property:value;
}

In this example, the ul is the parent of some element and that element is the parent of anchor. The downside of using this method is that if there is a ul with any child element that contains an anchor, it inherits the styles specified.

You may also use the child selector as well since you'll have to specify the parent element anyway.

ul>li a {
    property:value;
}

In this example, the anchor must be a descendant of an li that MUST be a child of ul, meaning it must be within the tree following the ul declaration. This is going to be a bit more specific and will only grab a list item that contains an anchor AND is a child of ul.

SO, to answer your question by code.

ul.menu > li a.active {
    property:value;
}

This should grab the ul with the class of menu, and the child list item that contains only an anchor with the class of active.