<code>: The Inline Code element
Baseline Widely available
This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.
The <code> HTML element displays its contents styled in a fashion intended to indicate that the text is a short fragment of computer code. By default, the content text is displayed using the user agent's default monospace font.
Try it
Attributes
This element only includes the global attributes.
Examples
A paragraph of text that includes <code>:
<p>
The function <code>selectAll()</code> highlights all the text in the input
field so the user can, for example, copy or delete the text.
</p>
Result
Notes
To represent multiple lines of code, wrap the <code> element within a <pre> element. The <code> element by itself only represents a single phrase of code or line of code.
A CSS rule can be defined for the code selector to override the browser's default font face. Preferences set by the user might take precedence over the specified CSS.
Technical summary
| Content categories | Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content. |
|---|---|
| Permitted content | Phrasing content. |
| Tag omission | None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory. |
| Permitted parents | Any element that accepts phrasing content. |
| Implicit ARIA role | code |
| Permitted ARIA roles | Any |
| DOM interface |
HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4)
inclusive, Firefox implements the
HTMLSpanElement interface for this element.
|
Specifications
| Specification |
|---|
| HTML Standard # the-code-element |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser