Comments on: Your last CSS attribute doesn’t need a semicolon

By: barry gorbes

barry gorbes — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:31:54 +0000

Great information thanks for getting this out there for people like me to read.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:52:00 +0000

It’s definitely a very bad habit to ignore the semicolon at the last attribute. Problem occurs when you added another attribute at the end and forget to add the semicolon before it.

By: Kelly McCathran

Kelly McCathran — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:56:27 +0000

Another side note, the semicolon is equivalent to pressing return or enter in UNIX and some coders like to have every value on a separate line (instead of one massive line). This helps separate each and verify that you didn’t miss anything.

By: Kelly McCathran

Kelly McCathran — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:50:52 +0000

As a teacher, I highly encourage people to build good habits. Practice doesn’t make perfect, it can make bad habits permanent. It is far better to be safe and have a habit of the semicolon than to troubleshoot all the errors it may introduce.

Grammar police: Sorry, I’ll sleep better if I add this. I think you mean quirk, not quark (the sub-atomic particle and page layout program)

By: Francisco Blanchart

Francisco Blanchart — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:04:02 +0000

I knew this from the start and at first (as the obsessive clean-coder I was) I even spent time cleaning the last declaration (better than “attribute”) in every rule from their semicolons.

Presently I always make sure that every declaration that I add ends nicely with its semicolon, after hours of head-scratching before realising that the problem was in that one that I added below the semicolon-less one that was supposed to close the rule.

My years of experience have taught me that CSS styling is often a trial-and-error job in which you have to add and remove declarations until you get what you want to achieve and the effort of being constantly aware of the semicolons just to save a bunch of bites in the code is not worth it.

By: Gordon Mackay

Gordon Mackay — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:00:00 +0000

I think the operative word is “habit” in this case, and web developers certainly adopt more habits than most people… fortunately they don’t cost much and are unlikely to give you a nasty rash

By: Chihn

Chihn — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:00:00 +0000

I did not know this but I think that I will not use it so like Mattias said I won’t get any errors.

By: Mattias Lundmark

Mattias Lundmark — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:00:00 +0000

Leaving out the last semi-colon is actually a habit I actively try to break. I’ve found out the hard way that the errors caused by forgetting to add it in when adding a new instruction outweighs the small reduction in file size that you’ll achieve.

By: Mike Robinson

Mike Robinson — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:00:00 +0000

I’ve been getting into the habit of doing this, it’s handy for a minor trimming of the file size. Just have to remember, if you are adding a new attribute, don’t forget to add the semi-colon to the old, last attribute!