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The :last-of-type selector allows you to target the last occurence of an element within its container. It is defined in the CSS Selectors Level 3 spec as a “structural pseudo-class”, meaning it is used to style content based on its relationship with parent and sibling content.
Suppose we have an article with a title, several paragraphs and an image:
<article>
<h1>A Title</h1>
Paragraph 1.
Paragraph 2.
Paragraph 3.
<img src="...">
</article>We want to make the last paragraph smaller, to act as a conclusion to the content (like an editor’s note). Instead of giving it a class, we can use :last-of-type to select it:
p:last-of-type {
font-size: 0.75em;
}Using :last-of-type is very similar to :nth-child but with one critical difference: it is less specific. In the example above, if we had used p:nth-last-child(1), nothing would happen because the paragraph is not the last child of its parent (the
:last-of-type: it targets a particular type of element in a particular arrangement with relation to similar siblings, not all siblings.
The more complete example below demonstrates the use of :last-of-type and a related pseudo-class selector, :first-of-type.
Other Resources
- Related to: first-of-type, nth-of-type, nth-last-of-type
- Mozilla Docs
Browser Support
| Chrome | Safari | Firefox | Opera | IE | Android | iOS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works | 3.2+ | Works | 9.5+ | 9+ | Works | Works |
:last-of-type was introduced in CSS Selectors Module 3, which means old versions of browsers do not support it. However, modern browser support is impeccable, and the new pseudo-selectors are widely used in production environments. If you require older browser support, either polyfill for IE, or use these selectors in non-critical ways á la progressive enhancement, which is recommended.
I find it rather odd that: .myClass:last-of-type does not work, yet .myClass:first-of-type does work! I wonder why they didn’t keep this consistent (Chrome version 28.0)
Odd – I’m tripping! This does actually seem to work as expected. Not sure what was causing my earlier issue.
I am having the same issue. Are you sure it was a mistake? Or perhaps it was a bug…
Same here..
Chrome 31.0.1612
“last-of-type” only refers to the element, not the attributes …
Marcos is right about last-of-type in Chrome it doesn’t work when I refer to a class. Thanks for that!
Thanks! I had a shady memory of this CSS-“trick” and had to check your site. Result! :)
It looks like these *-of-type selectors can be disrupted (in Chrome at least) by dynamically generated elements inserted into the parent container. For instance, if some js code inserts a div into the parent, your original last-of-type will lose track of the element to which it was attached.
Too bad that “last-of-type” is not actually implemented correctly.
A type should be what is specified before the
:last-of-type, so if I have “.January” as the “type”, the “.January:last-of-type” should hit the last occurrence elements with the class “.January“, which it does not (using Chrome 39.0.2171.95 (64-bit), OS X).Just started a web design class and I am having the same problem. How do I fix it?
So I tested this out and apparently it ONLY applies to HTML elements and not by class-names unfortunately.
In the spec it states:
So doing something like this won’t work:
But doing this will work:
You’re mistaken. :last-of-type works on class names and IDs just fine. The term “element” in the spec you quoted doesn’t refer to “tag name”, it refers to a general “element”. How you select that element is irrelevant. Example: https://jsfiddle.net/6cd83wb4/1/
@TylerH: You’re wrong:
https://jsfiddle.net/6cd83wb4/2/
@TylerH @Jan Hartmann Ok so you’re both right and wrong at the same time here lads. This is really weird behavior so bear with me.
It appears that using a class with :last-of-type results in something that I can only describe as *.class:first-of-class. So what exactly happens here? Well it does bind last-of-type to the html tag. Whether it be a div or a p or whatever. But that ‘last’ element must also have the css tag which is why Jan’s example doesn’t result in anything highlighted because whilst it does bind to the class as in this rule is applied using the class selector to any html elements the actual :last-of-type is bound to the html tags so you can’t have multiple classes using the same html tag and expact multiple :last-of-type highlights.
Now, this doesn’t happen to affect me because I’m writing web components which means that my element tag names are largely unique meaning that the class selector syntax is very helpful for filtering styling within lists and such.
Below worked for me:
.PFourTiles{
margin: 20px 13px 0px 0px;
}
.pseudo-primary{
.PFourTiles:last-of-type {
margin: 20px 0px 0px 0px;
}
}
Question, is it possible to create link that shows the lastest img from the latest article in one specific category?
I want to have one picture in my header that will change and my readers have the possibility to read more if they are interested.
For example: I have several categories and I want a preview on my index page but only the first picture from the latest article in one of those categories..
hard to explain but several bloggers use that type of preview right now and I want that as well, but I don’t use wordpress so I have to find a way to solve that problem..
please help!
(inthefrow.com, lilypebbles.co.uk, viviannadoesmakeup.com, heyclaire.com – you get the picture..)
kind regards Kristina
Try this:
.theList>p:nth-last-of-type(1) {
background: #ff0000;
}
where .theList is your container element
Here’s what I’m looking for:
.className a:first-of-type[href*=”string”]
I can’t get it to work with either first-of-type or last-of-type. Has anyone been able to get this working, or is using both selectors simply not supported?
As for the dispute as to whether last-of-type works on classes or not, or only on elements, why not specify an element with a class? The following worked perfectly for me — hope this helps somebody.
Unfortunately it does not work in this example:
https://jsfiddle.net/71xejb8o/1/
I think it may work in some scenarios, but not others, depending on the surrounding elements.