How to select elements by data attribute using CSS? Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025 Comments Improve Suggest changes Like Article Like Report CSS provides a way to select HTML elements based on attributes and their values. This can be extremely helpful for targeting elements in a flexible and specific way. This enables fine-tuned control over styling elements in a webpage.Here are the different ways to select elements using attribute selectors in CSS:SelectorDescription[attribute]Selects elements with the specified attribute.[attribute="value"]Selects elements with the specified attribute and exact value.[attribute~="value"]Selects elements with an attribute value that contains the specified word.[attribute|="value"]Selects the elements with the specified attribute which starts with the specified value.[attribute^="value"]Selects elements where the attribute value begins with the specified value.[attribute$="value"]Selects elements where the attribute value ends with the specified value.[attribute*="value"]Selects elements where the attribute value contains the specified value.Examples of CSS Attribute SelectorsBelow, we'll demonstrate how these selectors can be used to style HTML elements. We'll show the code as well as the corresponding output to help clarify how each selector works.Example 1: Selecting Elements with a Specific AttributeIn this example, we use the [target] attribute selector to style <a> elements that have the target attribute, regardless of its value. html <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title> Attribute selector in CSS </title> <style> a[target] { background-color: yellow; } a { font-size: 20px; } </style> </head> <body style = "text-align:center;"> <h1 style = "color:green;" > GeeksForGeeks </h1> <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org//" target="_blank"> geeksforgeeks.org </a> <br><br> <a href="https://www.google.com//" > google.com </a> </body> </html> Output:Example 2: Selecting Elements with a Specific Attribute and ValueThis example demonstrates how to target <a> elements that have the target attribute with the value _top. We also change the background color and text color. html <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title> Attribute selector in CSS </title> <style> a[target=_top] { background-color: green; color: white; } a { font-size: 20px; } </style> </head> <body style = "text-align:center;"> <h1 style = "color:green;" > GeeksForGeeks </h1> <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org//" target="_top" > geeksforgeeks.org </a> <br><br> <a href="https://www.google.com//" > google.com </a> </body> </html> Output:Example 3: Selecting Elements with Attribute Values Starting with a Specified ValueIn this example, we use the [class^="top"] selector to target all <p> elements whose class attribute starts with the string "top". html <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title> Attribute selector in CSS </title> <style> [class^="top"] { background-color: green; color: white; } p { font-size: 20px; } </style> </head> <body style = "text-align:center;"> <h1 style = "color:green;" > GeeksForGeeks </h1> <p class="top-p">A computer science portal</p> <p class="topPara">Attribute Selector Example</p> <p class="Para">CSS does not applies here</p> </body> </html> Output: Comment More infoAdvertise with us Next Article CSS Introduction P PranchalKatiyar Follow Improve Article Tags : Web Technologies CSS CSS-Selectors Similar Reads CSS Tutorial CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a stylesheet language used to style and enhance website presentation. CSS is one of the three main components of a webpage, along with HTML and JavaScript.HTML adds Structure to a web page.JavaScript adds logic to it and CSS makes it visually appealing or 7 min read CSS Introduction CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a language designed to simplify the process of making web pages presentable.It allows you to apply styles to HTML documents by prescribing colors, fonts, spacing, and positioning.The main advantages are the separation of content (in HTML) and styling (in CSS) and the 4 min read CSS Syntax CSS is written as a rule set, which consists of a selector and a declaration block. The basic syntax of CSS is as follows:The selector is a targeted HTML element or elements to which we have to apply styling.The Declaration Block or " { } " is a block in which we write our CSS.HTML<html> <h 2 min read CSS Selectors CSS Selectors are used to target HTML elements on your pages, allowing you to apply styles based on their ID, class, type attributes, and more. There are mainly 5 types of selectors.Basic CSS Selectors: These are used to target elements by tag, .class, or # ID for fundamental styling needs.Combinato 7 min read CSS Comments CSS comments are used to add notes or explanations to your code, helping you and others understand it better. They start with /* and end with */ and can be used for both single-line and multi-line comments. Note: Comments are ignored by browsers, so they won’t affect how your webpage looks or works. 2 min read CSS Colors CSS colors are used to set the color of different parts of a webpage, like text, background, and borders. This helps make the page look more attractive and easier to read. You can define colors using names, hex codes, RGB values, and more.You can try different formats of colors here- #content-iframe 5 min read CSS Borders Borders in CSS are used to create a visible outline around an element. They can be customized in terms ofWidth: The thickness of the border.Style: The appearance of the border (solid, dashed, dotted, etc.).Color: The color of the border.You can try different types of borders here- #custom-iframe{ he 5 min read CSS Margins CSS margins are used to create space around an element, separating it from neighboring elements and the edges of the webpage. They control the layout by adjusting the distance between elements, providing better organization and readability.Syntax:body { margin: value;}HTML<html> <head> 4 min read CSS Height and Width Height and Width in CSS are used to set the height and width of boxes. Their values can be set using length, percentage, or auto.Width and HeightThe width and height properties in CSS are used to define the dimensions of an element. The values can be set in various units, such as pixels (px), centim 4 min read CSS Outline CSS outline is a property used to draw a line around an element's border. It does not affect the layout, unlike borders. It's often used to highlight elements, providing a visual emphasis without altering the dimensions of the element.Syntaxselector{ outline: outline-width outline-type outline-color 4 min read Like