why is there space between my li elements? [duplicate]

Question

I have a list of items displayed horizontally. I want to create a border around each li, and have them jut up right next to each other.

I created a small test to illustrate the problem, seen here:

<ul class="dashboard_inline_links">
    <li><a href="#">October - 0</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">November - 0</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">December - 765</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">January - 0</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">February - 756</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">March - 2</a></li>
</ul>

.dashboard_inline_links li {
    border-style: solid;    
    border-width: 1px;    
    display: inline;  
    padding: 4px 8px;
}
.dashboard_inline_links a {   
    border-color: transparent #C6D3F0;   
    border-style: solid;    
    border-width: 1px;   
    color: #28478E;   
    display: inline-block;    
    margin: 0;    
    padding: 0;
}

In short - there is white-space between the list items. I want them to jut up next to each other, and now I can only accomplish this by setting margin-left = -3px on the li items.

Any idea what is happening? I feel like I am missing something obvious!

Answer 1

As far as I could tell, you're setting the li to be display: inline, which means it will be treated like text in a paragraph. Hence, the white-space between the elements becomes a space that you visually see.

This should demonstrate what I mean: http://jsfiddle.net/8F2XY/1/

Note, the following "resolves" the issue:

<ul class="dashboard_inline_links">
    <li><a href="#">October - 0</a></li><li><a href="#">November - 0</a></li><li><a href="#">December - 765</a></li><li><a href="#">January - 0</a></li><li><a href="#">February - 756</a></li><li><a href="#">March - 2</a></li>
</ul>

http://jsfiddle.net/8F2XY/2/

It's the absence of whitespace between the lis and betwen the lis and as that fixes the code as-is.

Now, if you float: left, the element will become like a display: block element which will flow left in the display. Whitespace will be ignored.

So:

.dashboard_inline_links {
    border-bottom: 1px dotted #C6D3F0;
    border-top: 1px dotted #C6D3F0;
    display: inline-block; overflow: hidden;
    padding: 6px 0;
    width: 916px;
    margin-top: -5px;
    padding: 6px 0;
    position: relative;
    white-space: nowrap;
}
.dashboard_inline_links li {
    list-style-type: none;
    border-style: solid;    
    border-width: 1px;    
    float: left;
    padding: 4px 8px;
}
.dashboard_inline_links a {   
    border-color: transparent #C6D3F0;   
    border-style: solid;    
    border-width: 1px;   
    color: #28478E;   
    display: block;    
    margin: 0;    
    padding: 0;
}

http://jsfiddle.net/8F2XY/