The <custom-ident> CSS data type denotes an arbitrary user-defined string used as an identifier. It is case-sensitive, and certain values are forbidden in various contexts to prevent ambiguity.

nono79            A mix of alphanumeric characters and numbers ground-level      A mix of alphanumeric characters and a dash -test             A dash followed by alphanumeric characters _internal         An underscore followed by alphanumeric characters \22 toto          A Unicode character followed by a sequence of alphanumeric characters bili\.bob         A correctly escaped period 

<custom-ident>

The <custom-ident> CSS data type denotes an arbitrary user-defined string used as an identifier. It is case-sensitive, and certain values are forbidden in various contexts to prevent ambiguity.

Syntax

The syntax of <custom-ident> is similar to CSS identifiers (such as property names), except that it is case-sensitive. It consists of one or more characters, where characters can be any of the following:

any alphabetical character (A to Z, or a to z), any decimal digit (0 to 9), a hyphen (-), an underscore (_), an escaped character (preceded by a backslash, \), a Unicode character (in the format of a backslash, \, followed by one to six hexadecimal digits, representing its Unicode code point)

Note that id1, Id1, iD1 and ID1 are all different identifiers as they are case-sensitive. On the other hand, as there are several ways to escape a character, toto\? and toto\3F are the same identifiers.

Forbidden values

A <custom-ident> must not be placed between single or double quotes as this would be identical to a <string>. Moreover, the first character must not be a decimal digit, nor a hyphen (-) followed by a decimal digit or another hyphen.

To prevent ambiguity, each property that uses <custom-ident> forbids the use of specific values:

animation-name

Forbids the global CSS values (unset, initial, and inherit), as well as none.

counter-reset, counter-increment

Forbids the global CSS values (unset, initial, and inherit), as well as none.

@counter-style, list-style-type

Forbids the global CSS values (unset, initial, and inherit), as well as the values none, inline, and outside. Also, quite a few predefined values are implemented by the different browsers: disc, circle, square, decimal, cjk-decimal, decimal-leading-zero, lower-roman, upper-roman, lower-greek, lower-alpha, lower-latin, upper-alpha, upper-latin, arabic-indic, armenian, bengali, cambodian, cjk-earthly-branch, cjk-heavenly-stem, cjk-ideographic, devanagari, ethiopic-numeric, georgian, gujarati, gurmukhi, hebrew, hiragana, hiragana-iroha, japanese-formal, japanese-informal, kannada, katakana, katakana-iroha, khmer, korean-hangul-formal, korean-hanja-formal, korean-hanja-informal, lao, lower-armenian, malayalam, mongolian, myanmar, oriya, persian, simp-chinese-formal, simp-chinese-informal, tamil, telugu, thai, tibetan, trad-chinese-formal, trad-chinese-informal, upper-armenian, disclosure-open, and disclosure-close.

grid-row-start, grid-row-end, grid-column-start, grid-column-end

Forbids the span value.

will-change

Forbids the global CSS values (unset, initial, and inherit), as well as the values will-change, auto, scroll-position, and contents.

Examples

Valid identifiers

nono79            A mix of alphanumeric characters and numbers ground-level      A mix of alphanumeric characters and a dash -test             A dash followed by alphanumeric characters _internal         An underscore followed by alphanumeric characters \22 toto          A Unicode character followed by a sequence of alphanumeric characters bili\.bob         A correctly escaped period 

Invalid identifiers

34rem             It must not start with a decimal digit. -12rad            It must not start with a dash followed by a decimal digit. bili.bob          Only alphanumeric characters, _, and - needn't be escaped. --toto            It must not start with two dashes. This would be a custom property. 'bilibob'         This would be a <string>. "bilibob"         This would be a <string>. 

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Values and Units Module Level 4The definition of '<custom-ident>' in that specification.	Editor's Draft
CSS Will Change Module Level 1The definition of '<custom-ident> for will-change' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Defines which values are excluded for will-change.
CSS Counter Styles Level 3The definition of '<custom-ident> for list-style-type' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Uses <custom-ident> instead of a finite list of keywords. Defines which values are excluded for list-style-type and @counter-style.
CSS Lists Module Level 3The definition of '<custom-ident> for counter-*' in that specification.	Working Draft	Renames <identifier> to <custom-ident>. Adds its usage to the new counter-set property.
CSS Animations Level 1The definition of '<custom-ident> for animation-name' in that specification.	Working Draft	Defines which values are excluded for animation-name.
CSS Values and Units Module Level 3The definition of '<custom-ident>' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Renames <identifier> to <custom-ident>. Makes it a pseudo-type and forbids the use of excluded values.
CSS Level 2 (Revision 1)The definition of '<identifier>' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition.

As this type is not a real type but a convenience type used to simplify the description of allowed values, there is no browser compatibility information as such.

See also

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