Is it possible to get Flexbox to work inside label?

Question

I\'m using flexbox to display a text label along with a numeric value in a narrow column, so that the text is truncated with ellipsis if it doesn\'t fit.

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Answer 1

That's because, by default, tables use the automatic table layout:

The CSS 2.1 spec doesn't define that layout mode, but suggests a (non-normative) algorithm, which reflects the behavior of several popular HTML user agents.

According to that algorithm, the table's width will only be treated like a minimum width, and the real width will be enough so that the content does not overflow:

Calculate the minimum content width (MCW) of each cell: the formatted content may span any number of lines but may not overflow the cell box.

Since you have white-space: nowrap, the MCW will be the width of the full text.

To avoid that, you can set the initial width of your first span to 0:

.line span:first-child {
  width: 0;
}

.wrapper {
  width: 150px;
}
.table {
  display: table;
}
.table > div {
  display: table-cell;
}
.line {
  display: flex;
  width: 100%;
}
.line span:first-child {
  width: 0;
  white-space: nowrap;
  flex-grow: 1;
  overflow: hidden;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
}
.line span:last-child {
  flex-shrink: 0;
  margin-left: 5px;
}

<div class="wrapper">
  <div class="line">
    <span>Very long label text</span>
    <span>12345</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="table wrapper">
  <div>
    <div class="line">
      <span>Very long label text</span>
      <span>12345</span>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Alternatively, you may want to try the fixed table mode, which is properly defined in the spec (and thus more reliable), is usually faster, and solves the problem too.

table-layout: fixed;

.wrapper {
  width: 150px;
}
.table {
  display: table;
  table-layout: fixed;
}
.table > div {
  display: table-cell;
}
.line {
  display: flex;
  width: 100%;
}
.line span:first-child {
  white-space: nowrap;
  flex-grow: 1;
  overflow: hidden;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
}
.line span:last-child {
  flex-shrink: 0;
  margin-left: 5px;
}

<div class="wrapper">
  <div class="line">
    <span>Very long label text</span>
    <span>12345</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="table wrapper">
  <div>
    <div class="line">
      <span>Very long label text</span>
      <span>12345</span>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>