CODEWITHSUNDEEP
csscss-position
Hacker
Hacker

Reputation: 7906

When to exactly use position relative

I am not much expert in css. I did not give any position and have css like

#myId{
    margin-left: 10px;
    margin-top: 10px;
}

#myId{
    position: relative;
    left: 10px;
    top: 10px;
}

Both did exactly what i wanted. When should i use relative position exactly. Any advantage or disadvantage over other?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1445

Answers (1)

Justinas
Justinas

Reputation: 43557

Case 1

You have inner element that is positioned absolute and want that element to stick to it's parent. Than you apply position: relative to parent element. By default absolute element pops out from DOM flow and takes position from closest relative element (html by default)

Case 2

You want to move element but still keep it in DOM flow. Than apply position: relative and move it with left/right/top/bottom properties.

Case 3

You want to place one element over another. Static elements does not take effect of z-index that's why you need to set it's position to relative, static or fixed

There may be other use cases

.a {
  background-color: #ddd;
  
  left: 50px;
  top: 150px;
  position: relative;
  
  width: 200px;
  height: 200px;
  text-align: center;
}
.absolute,
.a div {
  
  position: absolute;
  left: 50px;
  top: 50px;
  
  width: 100%;
  height: 60px;
  background-color: rgba(250, 0, 0, .4);
}
<div class="a">
  HTML > relative
  <div>HTML > relative > absolute</div>
</div>

<div class="absolute">HTML > absolute</div>

.a {
  position: relative;
  left: -20px;
}
.b {
  margin-left: -20px;
}
.wrapper {
  border-bottom: 2px solid #454545;
}
<div class="wrapper">
  relative moving content
  <br/>
  <span>some content to overlap</span>
  <span class="relative a">some content</span>
  <span>some content</span>
</div>

<div class="wrapper">
  using margins
  <br/>
  <span>some content to overlap</span>
  <span class="relative b">some content</span>
  <span>some content</span>
</div>

Upvotes: 6

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