Web/HTML/Element/code

The HTML <code> 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.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

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	No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element.

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:

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.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of '<code>' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5The definition of '<code>' in that specification.	Recommendation
HTML 4.01 SpecificationThe definition of '<code>' in that specification.	Recommendation

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
code	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support Yes	Opera Full support Yes	Safari Full support Yes	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS Full support Yes	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support  

Full support

See also

• <samp>
• <kbd>
• <command> (deprecated)
• <var>
• <pre>

<code>: The Inline Code element by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.