Can an html element have multiple ids

Question

I understand that an id must be unique within an HTML XHTML page   My question is  for a given element  can I assign multiple ids to it    lt div id  nested element 123 task 123  gt  lt  div gt    I realize I have an easy solution with simply using a class  I m just curious about using ids in this manner

User · Accepted Answer

No  From the XHTML 1 0 Spec     In XML  fragment identifiers are of   type ID  and there can only be a   single attribute of type ID per   element  Therefore  in XHTML 1 0 the   id attribute is defined to be of type   ID  In order to ensure that XHTML 1 0   documents are well-structured XML   documents  XHTML 1 0 documents MUST   use the id attribute when defining   fragment identifiers on the elements   listed above  See the HTML   Compatibility Guidelines for   information on ensuring such anchors   are backward compatible when serving   XHTML documents as media type   text html

User · Answer

You can only have one ID per element  but you can indeed have more than one class  But don t have multiple class attributes  put multiple class values into one attribute    lt div id  foo  class  bar baz bax  gt    is perfectly legal

User · Answer

I know this is a year old but I was curious about this myself and I m sure others will find their way here   The simple answer is no  as others have said before me  An element can t have more than one ID and an ID can t be used more than once in a page  Try it out and you ll see how well it doesn t work   In reponse to tvanfosson s answer regarding the use of the same ID in two different elements  As far as I m aware an ID can only be used once in a page regardless of whether it s attached to a different tag   By definition  an element needing an ID should be unique but if you need two ID s then it s not really unique and needs a class instead

User · Answer

http   www w3 org TR REC-html40 struct global html h-7 5 2     The id attribute assigns a unique identifier to an element  which may   be verified by an SGML parser     and      ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter   A-Za-z   and may be   followed by any number of letters  digits   0-9    hyphens   -      underscores        colons        and periods          So  id  must be unique and can t contain a space

User · Answer

My understanding has always been    ID s are single use and are only applied to one element      Each is attributed as a Unique Identifier to  only  one single element   Classes can be used more than once      They can therefore be applied to more than one element  and similarly yet different  there can be more than one class  i e  multiple classes  per element

User · Answer

Nay   https   www w3 org TR 2011 WD-html5-20110525 elements html the-id-attribute     The value must not contain any space characters    id  a b   lt -- find the space character in that VaLuE   That said  you can style multiple IDs  But if you re following spec  the answer is no

User · Answer

No   Every DOM element  if it has an id  has a single  unique id    You could approximate it using something like    lt div id  enclosing id 123  gt  lt span id  enclosed id 123  gt  lt  span gt  lt  div gt    and then use navigation to get what you really want   If you are just looking to apply styles  class names are better

User · Answer

My understanding has always been    ID s are single use and are only applied to one element      Each is attributed as a Unique Identifier to  only  one single element   Classes can be used more than once      They can therefore be applied to more than one element  and similarly yet different  there can be more than one class  i e  multiple classes  per element

User · Answer

No   While the definition from w3c for HTML 4 doesn t seem to explicitly cover your question  the definition of the name and id attribute says no spaces in the identifier      ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter   A-Za-z   and may be followed by any number of letters  digits   0-9    hyphens   -    underscores        colons        and periods

User · Answer

No   While the definition from w3c for HTML 4 doesn t seem to explicitly cover your question  the definition of the name and id attribute says no spaces in the identifier      ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter   A-Za-z   and may be followed by any number of letters  digits   0-9    hyphens   -    underscores        colons        and periods

User · Answer

You can only have one ID per element  but you can indeed have more than one class  But don t have multiple class attributes  put multiple class values into one attribute    lt div id  foo  class  bar baz bax  gt    is perfectly legal

User · Answer

No  you should use nested DIVs if you want to head down that path   Besides  even if you could  imagine the confusion it would cause when you run document getElementByID     What ID is it going to grab if there are multiple ones   On a slightly related topic  you can add multiple classes to a DIV   See Eric Myers discussion at   http   meyerweb com eric articles webrev 199802a html

User · Answer

No   Having said that  there s nothing to stop you doing it  But you ll get inconsistent behaviour with the various browsers  Don t do it  1 ID per element   If you want multiple assignations to an element use classes  separated by a space

User · Answer

http   www w3 org TR REC-html40 struct global html h-7 5 2     The id attribute assigns a unique identifier to an element  which may   be verified by an SGML parser     and      ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter   A-Za-z   and may be   followed by any number of letters  digits   0-9    hyphens   -      underscores        colons        and periods          So  id  must be unique and can t contain a space

User · Answer

No you cannot have multiple ids for a single tag  but I have seen a tag with a name attribute and an id attribute which are treated the same by some applications

User · Answer

classes are specially made for this  here is the code from which you can understand    lt html gt   lt head gt       lt style type  text css  gt        personal              height 100px              width  100px                     fam              border  2px solid  ccc                    x              background-color  ccc                     lt  style gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt        lt div class  personal fam x  gt  lt  div gt    lt  body gt    lt  html gt

User · Answer

No   Having said that  there s nothing to stop you doing it  But you ll get inconsistent behaviour with the various browsers  Don t do it  1 ID per element   If you want multiple assignations to an element use classes  separated by a space

User · Answer

ID s should be unique  so you should only use a particular ID once on a page  Classes may be used repeatedly   check https   www w3schools com html html id asp for more details

User · Answer

No   Every DOM element  if it has an id  has a single  unique id    You could approximate it using something like    lt div id  enclosing id 123  gt  lt span id  enclosed id 123  gt  lt  span gt  lt  div gt    and then use navigation to get what you really want   If you are just looking to apply styles  class names are better

User · Answer

Contrary to what everyone else said  the correct answer is YES  The Selectors spec is very clear about this      If an element has multiple ID attributes  all of them must be treated as IDs for that element for the purposes of the ID selector Such a situation could be reached using mixtures of xml id  DOM3 Core  XML DTDs  and namespace-specific knowledge      Edit  Just to clarify  Yes  an XHTML element can have multiple ids  e g    lt p id  foo  xml id  bar  gt    but assigning multiple ids to the same id attribute using a space-separated list is not possible

User · Answer

Any ID assigned to a div element is unique  However  you can assign multiple IDs  under   and not  to  a div element  In that case  you have to represent those IDs as  lt span gt  lt  span gt  IDs   Say  you want two links in the same HTML page to point to the same div element in  the page   The two different links  lt p gt  lt a href   exponentialEquationsCalculator  gt Exponential Equations lt  a gt  lt  p gt             lt p gt  lt a href   logarithmicExpressionsCalculator  gt  lt Logarithmic Expressions lt  a gt  lt  p gt   Point to the same section of the page    lt  -- Exponential   Logarithmic Equations Calculator -- gt   lt div class  w3-container w3-card white w3-margin-bottom  gt            lt span id  exponentialEquationsCalculator  gt  lt  span gt      lt span id  logarithmicEquationsCalculator  gt  lt  span gt   lt  div gt

User · Answer

I d like to say technically yes  since really what gets rendered is technically always browser dependent   Most browsers try to keep to the specifications as best they can and as far as I know there is nothing in the css specifications against it  I m only going to vouch for the actual html css javascript code that gets sent to the browser before any other interpretter steps in   However I also say no since every browser I typically test on doesn t actually let you  If you need to see for yourself save the following as a  html file and open it up in the major browsers   In all browsers I tested on the javascript function will not match to an element  However  remove either  hunkojunk  from the id tag and all works fine  Sample Code     lt html gt   lt head gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt       lt p id  hunkojunk1 hunkojunk2  gt  lt  p gt    lt script type  text javascript  gt      document getElementById  hunkojunk2   innerHTML    JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK    lt  script gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

No you cannot have multiple ids for a single tag  but I have seen a tag with a name attribute and an id attribute which are treated the same by some applications

User · Answer

No   Every DOM element  if it has an id  has a single  unique id    You could approximate it using something like    lt div id  enclosing id 123  gt  lt span id  enclosed id 123  gt  lt  span gt  lt  div gt    and then use navigation to get what you really want   If you are just looking to apply styles  class names are better

User · Answer

No you cannot have multiple ids for a single tag  but I have seen a tag with a name attribute and an id attribute which are treated the same by some applications

User · Answer

Nay   https   www w3 org TR 2011 WD-html5-20110525 elements html the-id-attribute     The value must not contain any space characters    id  a b   lt -- find the space character in that VaLuE   That said  you can style multiple IDs  But if you re following spec  the answer is no

User · Answer

I don  t think you can have two Id  s but it should be possible  Using the same id twice is a different case    like two people using the same passport  However one person could have multiple passports    Came looking for this since I have a situation where a single employee can have several functions  Say  sysadm  and  team coordinator  having the id  sysadm teamcoordinator  would let me reference them from other pages so that employees html sysadm and employees html teamcoordinator would lead to the same place    One day somebody else might take over the team coordinator function while the sysadm remains the sysadm    then I only have to change the ids on the employees html page     but like I said - it doesn  t work

User · Answer

Contrary to what everyone else said  the correct answer is YES  The Selectors spec is very clear about this      If an element has multiple ID attributes  all of them must be treated as IDs for that element for the purposes of the ID selector Such a situation could be reached using mixtures of xml id  DOM3 Core  XML DTDs  and namespace-specific knowledge      Edit  Just to clarify  Yes  an XHTML element can have multiple ids  e g    lt p id  foo  xml id  bar  gt    but assigning multiple ids to the same id attribute using a space-separated list is not possible

User · Answer

That s interesting  but as far as I know the answer is a firm no   I don t see why you need a nested ID  since you ll usually cross it with another element that has the same nested ID   If you don t there s no point  if you do there s still very little point

User · Answer

That s interesting  but as far as I know the answer is a firm no   I don t see why you need a nested ID  since you ll usually cross it with another element that has the same nested ID   If you don t there s no point  if you do there s still very little point

User · Answer

I d like to say technically yes  since really what gets rendered is technically always browser dependent   Most browsers try to keep to the specifications as best they can and as far as I know there is nothing in the css specifications against it  I m only going to vouch for the actual html css javascript code that gets sent to the browser before any other interpretter steps in   However I also say no since every browser I typically test on doesn t actually let you  If you need to see for yourself save the following as a  html file and open it up in the major browsers   In all browsers I tested on the javascript function will not match to an element  However  remove either  hunkojunk  from the id tag and all works fine  Sample Code     lt html gt   lt head gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt       lt p id  hunkojunk1 hunkojunk2  gt  lt  p gt    lt script type  text javascript  gt      document getElementById  hunkojunk2   innerHTML    JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK JUNK    lt  script gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

No   Every DOM element  if it has an id  has a single  unique id    You could approximate it using something like    lt div id  enclosing id 123  gt  lt span id  enclosed id 123  gt  lt  span gt  lt  div gt    and then use navigation to get what you really want   If you are just looking to apply styles  class names are better

User · Answer

ID s should be unique  so you should only use a particular ID once on a page  Classes may be used repeatedly   check https   www w3schools com html html id asp for more details

User · Answer

No   While the definition from w3c for HTML 4 doesn t seem to explicitly cover your question  the definition of the name and id attribute says no spaces in the identifier      ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter   A-Za-z   and may be followed by any number of letters  digits   0-9    hyphens   -    underscores        colons        and periods

User · Answer

You can only have one ID per element  but you can indeed have more than one class  But don t have multiple class attributes  put multiple class values into one attribute    lt div id  foo  class  bar baz bax  gt    is perfectly legal

User · Answer

No  you should use nested DIVs if you want to head down that path   Besides  even if you could  imagine the confusion it would cause when you run document getElementByID     What ID is it going to grab if there are multiple ones   On a slightly related topic  you can add multiple classes to a DIV   See Eric Myers discussion at   http   meyerweb com eric articles webrev 199802a html

User · Answer

My understanding has always been    ID s are single use and are only applied to one element      Each is attributed as a Unique Identifier to  only  one single element   Classes can be used more than once      They can therefore be applied to more than one element  and similarly yet different  there can be more than one class  i e  multiple classes  per element

User · Answer

That s interesting  but as far as I know the answer is a firm no   I don t see why you need a nested ID  since you ll usually cross it with another element that has the same nested ID   If you don t there s no point  if you do there s still very little point

User · Answer

I know this is a year old but I was curious about this myself and I m sure others will find their way here   The simple answer is no  as others have said before me  An element can t have more than one ID and an ID can t be used more than once in a page  Try it out and you ll see how well it doesn t work   In reponse to tvanfosson s answer regarding the use of the same ID in two different elements  As far as I m aware an ID can only be used once in a page regardless of whether it s attached to a different tag   By definition  an element needing an ID should be unique but if you need two ID s then it s not really unique and needs a class instead

User · Answer

classes are specially made for this  here is the code from which you can understand    lt html gt   lt head gt       lt style type  text css  gt        personal              height 100px              width  100px                     fam              border  2px solid  ccc                    x              background-color  ccc                     lt  style gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt        lt div class  personal fam x  gt  lt  div gt    lt  body gt    lt  html gt

User · Answer

That s interesting  but as far as I know the answer is a firm no   I don t see why you need a nested ID  since you ll usually cross it with another element that has the same nested ID   If you don t there s no point  if you do there s still very little point

User · Answer

I don  t think you can have two Id  s but it should be possible  Using the same id twice is a different case    like two people using the same passport  However one person could have multiple passports    Came looking for this since I have a situation where a single employee can have several functions  Say  sysadm  and  team coordinator  having the id  sysadm teamcoordinator  would let me reference them from other pages so that employees html sysadm and employees html teamcoordinator would lead to the same place    One day somebody else might take over the team coordinator function while the sysadm remains the sysadm    then I only have to change the ids on the employees html page     but like I said - it doesn  t work

User · Answer

Any ID assigned to a div element is unique  However  you can assign multiple IDs  under   and not  to  a div element  In that case  you have to represent those IDs as  lt span gt  lt  span gt  IDs   Say  you want two links in the same HTML page to point to the same div element in  the page   The two different links  lt p gt  lt a href   exponentialEquationsCalculator  gt Exponential Equations lt  a gt  lt  p gt             lt p gt  lt a href   logarithmicExpressionsCalculator  gt  lt Logarithmic Expressions lt  a gt  lt  p gt   Point to the same section of the page    lt  -- Exponential   Logarithmic Equations Calculator -- gt   lt div class  w3-container w3-card white w3-margin-bottom  gt            lt span id  exponentialEquationsCalculator  gt  lt  span gt      lt span id  logarithmicEquationsCalculator  gt  lt  span gt   lt  div gt

User · Answer

No  you should use nested DIVs if you want to head down that path   Besides  even if you could  imagine the confusion it would cause when you run document getElementByID     What ID is it going to grab if there are multiple ones   On a slightly related topic  you can add multiple classes to a DIV   See Eric Myers discussion at   http   meyerweb com eric articles webrev 199802a html

User · Answer

My understanding has always been    ID s are single use and are only applied to one element      Each is attributed as a Unique Identifier to  only  one single element   Classes can be used more than once      They can therefore be applied to more than one element  and similarly yet different  there can be more than one class  i e  multiple classes  per element

User · Answer

No  you should use nested DIVs if you want to head down that path   Besides  even if you could  imagine the confusion it would cause when you run document getElementByID     What ID is it going to grab if there are multiple ones   On a slightly related topic  you can add multiple classes to a DIV   See Eric Myers discussion at   http   meyerweb com eric articles webrev 199802a html

User · Answer

No you cannot have multiple ids for a single tag  but I have seen a tag with a name attribute and an id attribute which are treated the same by some applications

User · Answer

You can only have one ID per element  but you can indeed have more than one class  But don t have multiple class attributes  put multiple class values into one attribute    lt div id  foo  class  bar baz bax  gt    is perfectly legal

User · Answer

No   While the definition from w3c for HTML 4 doesn t seem to explicitly cover your question  the definition of the name and id attribute says no spaces in the identifier      ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter   A-Za-z   and may be followed by any number of letters  digits   0-9    hyphens   -    underscores        colons        and periods

[html] Can an html element have multiple ids?

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