1. Non procedural counters

counter-reset, counter-increment properties are ignored. counter and counters are supported inside the content property but with different semantics: the name of the counter is used to specify the non-formatted value of the counter.

Example 1 (XHTML):

ol > li:before {
    display: marker;
    content: counter(n, decimal);
    font-weight: bold;
}

In the previous example, the counter name is n (single letter 'n', any letter is OK) which specifies that the counter value is the rank of li within its parent element (an ol).

Example 2 (DocBook):

sect3 > title:before {
    content: counter(nnn-) " ";
}

In the previous example, the counter name is nnn- (3 letters followed by a dash) which specifies that the counter segmented value must be built as follows:

  1. Skip (dash means skip) the rank of title within its parent element (a sect3).

  2. Prepend (any letter means use) the rank of title parent (a sect3) within its parent (a sect2).

  3. Prepend the rank of title grand-parent (a sect2) within its parent (a sect1).

  4. Prepend the rank of title grand-grand-parent (a sect1) within its parent (an article or a chapter).