index.md

---

title: '<code>: The Inline Code element'
slug: Web/HTML/Element/code
page-type: html-element
browser-compat: html.elements.code

---

{{HTMLSidebar}}

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 {{Glossary("user agent", "user agent's")}} default monospace font.

{{EmbedInteractiveExample("pages/tabbed/code.html", "tabbed-shorter")}}

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Example

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>

The output generated by this HTML looks like this:

{{EmbedLiveSample("Example", 640, 70)}}

Notes

To represent multiple lines of code, wrap the <code> element within a {{HTMLElement("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	{{no_tag_omission}}
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Implicit ARIA role	No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	{{domxref("HTMLElement")}} Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the {{domxref("HTMLSpanElement")}} interface for this element.

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also

• {{HTMLElement("samp")}}

• {{HTMLElement("kbd")}}

• {{HTMLElement("var")}}

• {{HTMLElement("pre")}}