HTML - Given a Table, how to allow one column to be fluid without breaking the layout

I have the following:

<div style="width:100%;">

 <table>
  <tr>
    <td style="width:30px;">hi</td>
    <td style="width:40px;">hi</td>

    <td id="lotoftext" style="width:auto;white-space:nowrap;overflow:hidden;">LOTS Of text in here, LOTS</td>

    <td style="width:25px;">开发者_开发技巧hi</td>
  </tr>
 </table>

</div>

What I want to happen is for this table to grow to 100% possible of the outer DIV. Problem is, that the table, with a lot of text inside, ID='lotoftext' is causing the table to grow to a width bigger than the outer div which then breaks the page.

Any ideas? thanks

can you use max-width? You might need to put a div inside that specific TD and give that the max-width

Unless it is tabular data, you should build it using DIVs and CSS. You should be able to achieve what you want with less of a headache this way.

AnApprentice, to achieve this layout using DIV's and CSS (alternate option to using tables) you could approach the situation like this:

CSS:

#body_container{
    max-width:700px;
}

.data-container{
    background-color:#ccc;
    zoom:1;
}

.data-content_a{
    width:30px;
    float:left;
    background-color:#3FF;
}

.data-content_b{
    width:40px;
    float:left;
    background-color:#CF0;
}

.data-content_c{
    width:25px;
    float:right;
    background-color:#9FF;
}

.data-content_lotsoftext{
    float:left;
    background-color:#FCF;
    margin:-20px 26px 0 71px;
    clear:left;
    display:inline;
}

.clear{
    clear:both;
    padding:0;
    margin:0;
}

HTML:

<div id="body_container">
    <div class="data-container">
        <div class="data-content_c">4</div>
        <div class="data-content_a">1</div>
        <div class="data-content_b">2</div>
        <div class="data-content_lotsoftext">lots of text goes here!</div>
    <div class="clear"></div>
    </div>
</div>

The #body_container (or outter container) can to set to any width or no width. The left margin on the .data-content_lotsoftext is the combined width of .data-content_a and .data-content_b (70px + 1px to be on the safe side) and the right margin on .data-content_lotsoftext is the width of data-content_c (25px + 1px to be on the safe side).

By not assigning a width to .data-content_lotsoftext it will automatically stretch to be full width. display:inline helps it sit better in ie6.

Tested in Firefox, Chrome, IE8, IE7 and IE6 (IE6 and 7 are a little glitchy - if anyone could help refine the CSS to get it to work perfectly in IE6 and 7, please shout out!)

Hope this helps. Dan

The scenario you are describing is simply not suited for a table. A table should only be used when displaying tabular data. You should be using some other kind of html elements to build your structure and style it with CSS.