4.6.26 The span element

Categories:
Flow content.
Phrasing content.
Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:
Where phrasing content is expected.
Content model:
Phrasing content.
Content attributes:
Global attributes
DOM interface:
interface HTMLSpanElement : HTMLElement {};

The span element doesn't mean anything on its own, but can be useful when used together with the global attributes, e.g. class, lang, or dir. It represents its children.

In this example, a code fragment is marked up using span elements and class attributes so that its keywords and identifiers can be color-coded from CSS:

<pre><code class="lang-c"><span class="keyword">for</span> (<span class="ident">j</span> = 0; <span class="ident">j</span> &lt; 256; <span class="ident">j</span>++) {
  <span class="ident">i_t3</span> = (<span class="ident">i_t3</span> & 0x1ffff) | (<span class="ident">j</span> &lt;&lt; 17);
  <span class="ident">i_t6</span> = (((((((<span class="ident">i_t3</span> >> 3) ^ <span class="ident">i_t3</span>) >> 1) ^ <span class="ident">i_t3</span>) >> 8) ^ <span class="ident">i_t3</span>) >> 5) & 0xff;
  <span class="keyword">if</span> (<span class="ident">i_t6</span> == <span class="ident">i_t1</span>)
    <span class="keyword">break</span>;
}</code></pre>