Expand a div to fill the remaining width

I want a two-column div layout, where each one can have variable width e.g.

div {
  float: left;
}

.second {
  background: #ccc;
}

<div>Tree</div>
<div class="second">View</div>

I want the 'view' div to expand to the whole width available after 'tree' div has filled needed space.

Currently, my 'view' div is resized to content it contains It will also be good if both divs take up the whole height.

Not duplicate disclaimer:

Expand div to max width when float:left is set because there the left one has a fixed width.
Help with div - make div fit the remaining width because I need two columns both aligned to left

The solution to this is actually very easy, but not at all obvious. You have to trigger something called a "block formatting context" (BFC), which interacts with floats in a specific way.

Just take that second div, remove the float, and give it overflow:hidden instead. Any overflow value other than visible makes the block it's set on become a BFC. BFCs don't allow descendant floats to escape them, nor do they allow sibling/ancestor floats to intrude into them. The net effect here is that the floated div will do its thing, then the second div will be an ordinary block, taking up all available width except that occupied by the float.

This should work across all current browsers, though you may have to trigger hasLayout in IE6 and 7. I can't recall.

Demos:

Fixed Left: http://jsfiddle.net/A8zLY/5/
Fixed Right: http://jsfiddle.net/A8zLY/2/

div {
  float: left;
}

.second {
  background: #ccc;
  float: none;
  overflow: hidden;
}

<div>Tree</div>
<div class="second">View</div>

I just discovered the magic of flex boxes (display: flex). Try this:

<style>
  #box {
    display: flex;
  }
  #b {
    flex-grow: 100;
    border: 1px solid green;
  }
</style>
<div id='box'>
 <div id='a'>Tree</div>
 <div id='b'>View</div>
</div>

Flex boxes give me the control I've wished css had for 15 years. Its finally here! More info: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/

Use the CSS Flexbox flex-grow property to achieve this.

html, body {
  height: 100%;
}
body {
  display: flex;
}
.second {
  flex-grow: 1;
}

<div style="background: #bef;">Tree</div>
<div class="second" style="background: #ff9;">View</div>

This would be a good example of something that's trivial to do with tables and hard (if not impossible, at least in a cross-browser sense) to do with CSS.

If both the columns were fixed width, this would be easy.

If one of the columns was fixed width, this would be slightly harder but entirely doable.

With both columns variable width, IMHO you need to just use a two-column table.

Check this solution out

.container {
  width: 100%;
  height: 200px;
  background-color: green;
}
.sidebar {
  float: left;
  width: 200px;
  height: 200px;
  background-color: yellow;
}
.content {
  background-color: red;
  height: 200px;
  width: auto;
  margin-left: 200px;
}
.item {
  width: 25%;
  background-color: blue;
  float: left;
  color: white;
}
.clearfix {
  clear: both;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="clearfix"></div>
  <div class="sidebar">width: 200px</div>

  <div class="content">
    <div class="item">25%</div>
    <div class="item">25%</div>
    <div class="item">25%</div>
    <div class="item">25%</div>
  </div>
</div>

Expand a div to fill the remaining width

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