Why Does a Floated Element Prevent a Parent Container's Background from Fully Showing, and How Can This Be Fixed?

Element Float Impacts Background Color Coverage

In HTML, floating elements can disrupt the parent container's background color coverage. When a container element has child elements with float properties, the child elements are removed from the normal document flow. This can result in the parent element collapsing upon itself, causing its background color to be obscured.

To address this issue in the scenario provided:

<br><div>
<pre class="brush:php;toolbar:false"><div><p></p></div><br>

With the following CSS:

<br>.content {<pre class="brush:php;toolbar:false">width: 960px;
height: auto;
margin: 0 auto;
background: red;
clear: both;

}

.left {

 float: left;
 height: 300px;
 background: green;

}

.right {

 float: right;
 background: yellow;

}

The desired outcome is to have the red background color cover the entire height of the ".content" div. However, when the ".right" div is populated with content, it fails to expand its parent container's height, resulting in the red background being incomplete.

The resolution lies in applying the "overflow: hidden" property to the ".content" element:

<br>.content {<pre class="brush:php;toolbar:false">overflow: hidden;

}

By setting "overflow: hidden," the ".content" div is forced to contain its floated child elements, preventing it from collapsing. As a result, the red background now encompasses the entire height of the ".content" div, as intended.