How to approximate table layout with css when structure is disjointed - html

Question

I have some HTML which I want to use display: table css attributes to control. Unfortunately, I cannot actually change the HTML (or JS either), only the CSS (long story). This is a problem, because the structure of the existing HTML is causing trouble for the table layout. Here is a simplified version of the HTML and CSS:
<style>
.like-table { display: table;}
.like-tr { display: table-row;}
.like-th { display: table-cell; border: 1px solid gray;}
.useless-div-1 { }
.useless-div-2 { }
.like-td { display: table-cell; border: 1px solid gray;}
</style>
<div class="like-table">
<div class="like-tr">
<div class="like-th">1</div>
<div class="like-th">22</div>
<div class="like-th">3</div>
</div>
<div class="useless-div-1"><div class="useless-div-2">
<div class="like-tr">
<div class="like-td">111</div>
<div class="like-td">2</div>
<div class="like-td">3</div>
</div>
<div class="like-tr">
<div class="like-td">11</div>
<div class="like-td">2</div>
<div class="like-td">333</div>
</div>
</div></div>
</div>
Sadly, this renders the header and body columns width different widths:
If I remove the "useless-div-*" open and closing tags:
<div class="like-table">
<div class="like-tr">
<div class="like-th">1</div>
<div class="like-th">22</div>
<div class="like-th">3</div>
</div>
<div class="like-tr">
<div class="like-td">111</div>
<div class="like-td">2</div>
<div class="like-td">3</div>
</div>
<div class="like-tr">
<div class="like-td">11</div>
<div class="like-td">2</div>
<div class="like-td">333</div>
</div>
</div>
Then it renders fine, aligning header and body column widths:
So, is there anything I can do to the CSS that will cause the first set of HTML to behave like the second? Remember I cannot modify the HTML or JavaScript -- only the CSS! Please do not ask why...
Click here to tinker with the code.

Answer 1

Since you're wrapping table-row elements by useless-div, you could simply set display property of useless-div to table-row-group:
.useless-div { display: table-row-group; }
In CSS table layouts, all elements should follow the same structural properties.
Here is the JSBin Demo.
Update
After scratching my head for the past 5 hours over this, I realized that it's impossible to handle this by the current way.
So, I decided to write new styles to create a flexible CSS table. But I should mention a few things at first:
To keep the columns aligned vertically, setting a specific width to cells is required.
In the following example, I set borders to display the table better. because of that, I used box-sizing property to force browser to calculate the width of each cell including its padding and border. If you don't need border, remove it and the border-box property as well.
The Approach
.like-table {
width: 400px; /* You could declare a specific width. Your choice */
margin: 0 auto;
}
.like-th, .like-td {
float: left; /* <-- Float the cells to stick together */
width: 33.33%; /* <-- I applied the same width on each cell. */
/* I've explained how to set specific width for each column in the following */
border: 1px solid gray; /* Add border around each cell */
-webkit-box-sizing: border-box; /* Force browser to calculate width+borders */
-moz-box-sizing: border-box;
box-sizing: border-box;
}
.like-tr:after { /* Clearfix hack */
content: ' ';
font: 0/0 a;
display: block;
clear: both;
}
Note: To apply specific width on each column (left + center + right), First set a width on each cell as I did at above, then use the following selectors to override the applied width for left and right columns:
.like-table .like-td:first-child, /* Selectors for the left column */
.like-table .like-th:first-child {
width: 100px; /* <-- Override the width for the left column */
border-right: 0; /* You might also want to remove right borders */
}
.like-table .like-td:last-child, /* Selectors for the right column */
.like-table .like-th:last-child {
width: 100px; /* <-- Override the width for the right column */
border-left: 0; /* You might also want to remove left borders */
}
JSBin Demo #1. (fluid width)
JSBin Demo #2. (fixed width)