Make flex container take width of content, not width 100%

Question

In the below example, I have a button with the following styles...

.button-flexbox-approach {
    /* other button styles */
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
    padding: 1.5rem 2rem;
}

http://codepen.io/3stacks/pen/JWErZJ

But it automatically scales to 100% instead of the width of the content. You can set an explicit width, but then that doesn't allow your text to wrap naturally.

How can I make a button that has the inner text centered with flexbox, but doesn't grow to fit the size of the container?

.container {
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
}

.button {
/*   Simply flexing the button makes it grow to the size of the container... How do we make it only the size of the content inside it? */
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: center;
  -webkit-appearance: none;
  border-radius: 0;
  border-style: solid;
  border-width: 0;
  cursor: pointer;
  font-weight: normal;
  line-height: normal;
  margin: 0;
  position: relative;
  text-align: center;
  text-decoration: none;
  padding: 1rem 2rem 1.0625rem 2rem;
  font-size: 1rem;
  background-color: #D60C8B;
  border-color: #ab0a6f;
  color: #fff;
}

.one {
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
}

.two {
/* You can put an explicit width on that, but then you lose the flexibility with the content inside */
  width: 250px;
}

<div class="container">
  <p>
    Button one is flexed with no width and it grows to the size of its container
  </p>
  <p>
    <a class="button one" href="#">Button</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    Button two is flexed with an explicit width which makes it smaller, but we have no flexibility for changing the content
  </p>
  <p>
    <a class="button two" href="#">Button 2</a>
  </p>
</div>

Answer 1

Instead of display: flex on the container, use display: inline-flex.

This switches the container from block-level (which takes the full width of its parent) to inline-level (which takes the width of its content).

This sizing behavior is similar to display: block vs. display: inline-block.

For a related problem and solution see:

• Make flex items take content width, not width of parent container

Answer 2

EDIT: Michael_B pointed out in his answer that inline-flex on the parent is the correct property for this use-case. I've updated my blog post accordingly.

It's not ideal, but if you wrap the button in a container that is inline-block, the button will scale naturally with the content, like so:

.button {
  /* other button styles */
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: center;
  padding: 1.5rem 2rem;
}

<div style="display: inline-block;">
  <a class="button">Button</a>
</div>

You can then set the max-width on the container and the text will wrap to multiple lines, but retain the correct vertical centering.

I've detailed this in my most recent blog post: https://lukeboyle.com/css-buttons-solved-flexbox/