Re: [csswg-drafts] [selectors] is #42 a valid ID selector?

> Are there fundamental objections to relaxing the ID selector syntax 
so that "#" + element.id be always a valid ID selector when working 
with an HTML5 document?

Yes, "# + element.id" is *far* wider than [the CSS Syntax spec's 
notion of a 
`<hash-token>`](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-syntax/#hash-token-diagram),
 which is well-established for two decades or so.  Extending this to 
accommodate basically any character whatsoever would be a significant 
change to CSS parsing, and would be pretty weird in the context of 
what CSS normally understands as a token.  (For example, an ID can 
contain the `#` character, or other characters used in Selector 
parsing like `.` or `:`.)  Basically it would require a hash-token to 
be "every character between a # and the next space", which is super 
not-compatible.

You can still select any ID you want in CSS, you just have to escape 
it to match the grammar.  In particular, if you want to match an 
element with `id="42"`, you can write a selector like `#\34 2` (note 
you have to double-escape the slash if writing this in JS, so 
`document.querySelector("#\\34 2")`).  Is this *convenient*? No, of 
course not. But if you want convenience, stick to the generous syntax 
that CSS is friendly to.

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Received on Wednesday, 22 June 2016 01:47:04 UTC