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What is the difference between HTML div and span elements?

Asked 2008-10-08T16:01:44.623
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I would like to ask for some simple examples showing the uses of <div> and <span>. I've seen them both used to mark a section of a page with an id or class, but I'm interested in knowing if there are times when one is preferred over the other.

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<div> is a block-level element and <span> is an inline element.

If you wanted to do something with some inline text, <span> is the way to go since it will not introduce line breaks that a <div> would.

As noted by others, there are some semantics implied with each of these, most significantly the fact that a <div> implies a logical division in the document, akin to maybe a section of a document or something, a la:

<div id="Chapter1">
   <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, <span id="SomeSpecialText1">consectetuer adipiscing</span> elit. Duis congue vehicula purus.</p>
   <p>Nam <span id="SomeSpecialText2">eget magna nec</span> sapien fringilla euismod. Donec hendrerit.</p> 
</div>
answered 2008-10-08T16:03:16.400

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