absolute position with % width, inside a ul li? - html

Question

I'm building a navigation menu where I use a regular ul#nav.
In my example bellow I'm trying to make the div inside the li#third hang over the bottom of the ul#nav. I know I need to use position: absolute on the div inside li#third but if I do that then it just takes up the 100% of the width assigned to it.
I tried changing the position: absolute; width: 40%; on the div but then the last li slides under it.
How can I keep the width the same as the li#third element and still have it flow over it at the bottom?
Updated example: http://jsfiddle.net/VyHJR/24/
HTML :
<ul id="nav">
<li id="first">item</li>
<li id="second">item</li>
<li id="third"><div id="search">search</div></li>
<li id="fourth"><div id="flag"><div id="flag_item">4</div></div></li>
</ul>
CSS :
ul#nav { width: 600px; background-color: #fdd; padding: 0; margin: 30px 0 0 20px; overflow: hidden; }
ul#nav li { float: left; text-align: center; }
ul#nav li a { color: #333333; }
ul#nav li#first { background-color: #dff; width: 20%; padding: 6px 0; }
ul#nav li#second { background-color: #ddf; width: 20%; padding: 6px 0; }
ul#nav li#third { background-color: #dfd; width: 40%; }
ul#nav li#fourth { background-color: #ffd; width: 20%; }
li#third div#search { width: 100%; background-color: #333333; height: 40px; color: #ffffff; }
li#fourth div#flag { width: 100%; height: 20px; background-color: #333333; }
li#fourth div#flag div#flag_item { width: 1px height: 30px; background-color: red; }

Answer 1

See: http://jsfiddle.net/thirtydot/VyHJR/34/
Now I understand what you were trying to do, it makes sense.
I removed overflow: hidden on ul#nav, which I assume was there to contain the floats, and replaced it with display: inline-block. I could also have used clearfix.
I added position: relative; height: 1px; to ul#nav li#third. Some height was required, otherwise the fourth li takes the place of the third. position: relative to contain the absolutely positioned div#search.
I added left: 0 to div#search purely to fix IE7.

Answer 2

li{ overflow: hidden;
position: relative;}