styling alternating rows in a table

is it possible to set the style of alternating rows in a html table with style selectors that only ta开发者_如何学Goke account of the hierarchy of elements and do not use style names?

i need to style html output produced by a server component and the output does not set styles for alternating rows. i could write a javascript (or just as well change the component) but i am curious about whether it is possible to do in pure css.

thanks konstantin

In CSS 3:

tr:nth-child(odd)    { background-color:#eee; }
tr:nth-child(even)    { background-color:#fff; }

And in CSS 2, you have to use some class on e.g. even rows like:

.even { background-color: #00000; }

and you have to apply them when generating the rows server-side (or in hand ;-) ) or with e.g. jQuery like:

$(document).ready(function () {
    $("tr.nth-child(even)").addClass("even");
    //Or
    $("tr:even").addClass("even");
});