Apply CSS Style to child elements

I want to apply styles only to the table inside the DIV with a particular class:

Note: I'd rather use a css-selector for children elements.

Why does the #1 works and #2 doesn't?

div.test th, div.test td, div.test caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}

div.test th, td, caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}

HTML:

<html>
    <head>
        <style>
            div.test > th, td, caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>
            <table border="2">
                <tr><td>some</td></tr>
                <tr><td>data</td></tr>
                <tr><td>here</td></tr>
            </table>
        </div>
        <div class="test">
            <table  border="2">
                <tr><td>some</td></tr>
                <tr><td>data</td></tr>
                <tr><td>here</td></tr>
            </table>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

What am I doing wrong?

This code "div.test th, td, caption {padding:40px 100px 40px 50px;}" applies a rule to all th elements which are contained by a div element with a class named test, in addition to all td elements and all caption elements.

It is not the same as "all td, th and caption elements which are contained by a div element with a class of test". To accomplish that you need to change your selectors:

'>' isn't fully supported by some older browsers (I'm looking at you, Internet Explorer).

div.test th,
div.test td,
div.test caption {
    padding: 40px 100px 40px 50px;
}

.test * {padding: 40px 100px 40px 50px;}

The > selector matches direct children only, not descendants.

You want

div.test th, td, caption {}

or more likely

div.test th, div.test td, div.test caption {}

Edit:

The first one says

  div.test th, /* any <th> underneath a <div class="test"> */
  td,          /* or any <td> anywhere at all */
  caption      /* or any <caption> */

Whereas the second says

  div.test th,     /* any <th> underneath a <div class="test"> */
  div.test td,     /* or any <td> underneath a <div class="test"> */
  div.test caption /* or any <caption> underneath a <div class="test">  */

In your original the div.test > th says any <th> which is a **direct** child of <div class="test">, which means it will match <div class="test"><th>this</th></div> but won't match <div class="test"><table><th>this</th></table></div>

Apply CSS Style to child elements

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