Percentage 'min-height' works only when element has indirect parent with 'display: flex'

Question

Cannot understand why #inner element has its height only when #main got display:flex rule.

Here is my code:

#main {
  display: flex
}

#wrapper {
  background-color: violet
}

.content {
  font-size: 2em
}

#inner {
  min-height: 50%;
  background-color: green
}

<div id="main">
  <div id="wrapper">
    <div class="content">Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. </div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div id="inner"></div>
  </div>
</div>

If I remove display: flex rule height of #inner equals to 0:

#main {
/*   display: flex */
}

#wrapper {
  background-color: violet
}

.content {
  font-size: 2em
}

#inner {
  min-height: 50%;
  background-color: green
}

<div id="main">
  <div id="wrapper">
    <div class="content">Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. </div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div id="inner"></div>
  </div>
</div>

And one more thing. When #inner has some content inside, its height is summed up to #main height.

Take a look to the screenshot

Answer 1

You are facing the result of the stretch alignment related to flexbox. by default flex items are stretched so the following apply:

If the flex item has align-self: stretch, redo layout for its contents, treating this used size as its definite cross size so that percentage-sized children can be resolved. ^ref

For this reason, min-height with percentage is working. If you change the alignment and keep display:flex, it won't work

#main {
  display: flex
}

#wrapper {
  background-color: violet;
  align-self:flex-start;
}

.content {
  font-size: 2em
}

#inner {
  min-height: 50%;
  background-color: green
}

<div id="main">
  <div id="wrapper">
    <div class="content">Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. </div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div id="inner"></div>
  </div>
</div>

You should also note that you are having an overflow in your first example because the percentage is related to the content so anything you will add is more than the content itself.

Add border to notice this

#main {
  display: flex
}

#wrapper {
  background-color: violet;
  border:5px solid red;
}

.content {
  font-size: 2em
}

#inner {
  min-height: 50%;
  background-color: green
}

<div id="main">
  <div id="wrapper">
    <div class="content">Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. </div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div class="content">It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</div>
    <div id="inner"></div>
  </div>
</div>

A similar behavior happen in CSS Grid as well: Why does `height: 100%` value 'work' for child tags of grid-items?