postcss-nth-nested

PostCSS plugin to handle a custom :nth-nested(n) descendent depth selector syntax.

Demo on Codepen.

Installation

npm install postcss-nth-nested --save-dev

Usage

Add it to your PostCSS config:

// CommonJS
module.exports = {
  plugins: [require("postcss-nth-nested")],
};

// ES Modules
export default {
  plugins: [(await import("postcss-nth-nested")).default],
};

What it does

Use this to select elements by their depth in the DOM. This is not the same as CSS Nested Rules.

Eg:

• li:nth-nested(2) will select the <li> that is 2 levels deep in a nested list:

  <ul>
    <li>
      <ul>
        <li>
          This one
          <ul>
            <li></li>
          </ul>
        </li>
      </ul>
    </li>
  </ul>

• .foo:nth-nested(3) will select any .foo element that is 3 levels deep, i.e. it has 2 .foo ancestors above it in the DOM:

  <ul>
    <li>
      <ul class="foo">
        <li class="foo">
          <ul>
            <li class="foo">This one</li>
          </ul>
        </li>
      </ul>
    </li>
  </ul>

How does it work?

This plugin rewrites the selector using :where and :not to something much more verbose but well supported:

Examples:

Selector for nested elements by tag name...

li:nth-nested(2) > .text { background-color: lime }

becomes...

li:where(li li):not(li li li) > .text { background-color: lime }

---

Selector for nested elements by classname...

div.foo:nth-nested(4) > p { margin: 0 }

becomes...

div.foo:where(div.foo div.foo div.foo div.foo):not(div.foo div.foo div.foo div.foo div.foo) > p { margin: 0 }

☝️ This is interesting and open to debate because it [has to] behave differently from the nth-child() selector to be useful. Arguably there's room for more explicit selctors likenth-nested-child() and nth-nested-of-type() that would match elements in a similar way to the established nth- selectors.