Div width 100% minus fixed amount of pixels

Question

How can I achieve the following structure without using tables or JavaScript? The white borders represent edges of divs and aren\'t relevant to the question.

Answer 1

While Guffa's answer works in many situations, in some cases you may not want the left and/or right pieces of padding to be the parent of the center div. In these cases, you can use a block formatting context on the center and float the padding divs left and right. Here's the code

The HTML:

The CSS:

.container {
    width: 100px;
    height: 20px;
}

.left, .right {
    width: 20px;
    height: 100%;
    float: left;
    background: black;   
}

.right {
    float: right;
}

.center {
    overflow: auto;
    height: 100%;
    background: blue;
}

I feel that this element hierarchy is more natural when compared to nested nested divs, and better represents what's on the page. Because of this, borders, padding, and margin can be applied normally to all elements (ie: this 'naturality' goes beyond style and has ramifications).

Note that this only works on divs and other elements that share its 'fill 100% of the width by default' property. Inputs, tables, and possibly others will require you to wrap them in a container div and add a little more css to restore this quality. If you're unlucky enough to be in that situation, contact me and I'll dig up the css.

jsfiddle here: jsfiddle.net/RgdeQ

Enjoy!