In HTML, the class
and id
attributes are used to uniquely identify an element in an HTML document. Both attributes can be used to apply styles to an element using CSS, and both can be used as hooks for JavaScript to manipulate elements on a page. However, there are some key differences between the two attributes:
- Scope: An element can have multiple
class
attributes, and an element can belong to multiple classes. This means that a class can be used to apply styles to multiple elements on a page. On the other hand, an element can only have oneid
attribute, and anid
must be unique within the document. This means that anid
is used to identify a specific element on the page. - Styles: Both
class
andid
attributes can be used to apply styles to an element using CSS. However, theid
attribute has a higher specificity than theclass
attribute, which means that styles defined using anid
will take precedence over styles defined using aclass
. - JavaScript: Both
class
andid
attributes can be used as hooks for JavaScript to manipulate elements on a page. However, theid
attribute is generally used more frequently for this purpose because it allows you to easily select a specific element on the page using thedocument.getElementById()
method.
In summary, the class
attribute is used to identify a group of elements that share a common characteristic, while the id
attribute is used to uniquely identify a single element on the page.