stretching height of menu

[orchida3]

I am trying to make the "menu" div stretch to the bottom of the "content_area" div. I have set the width of the menu to
about 1/5 of the width of the entire "content_area". Is there a way to tell the "menu" to stretch to the length of the "content_area". I have tried to use (height: 100%) but it doesn't seem to work. Anybody have an idea?

<div id="content_area">
<div id="menu">

</div>
</div>

[DrDoc]

100% means 100% of the parent height or the 100% of height of the window, whichever is encountered first.

So, if you want to make sure that it extends to the full height of the parent, even when the parent extends below the fold ... 100% is not what you are looking for.

In fact, there is no good way of defining "100% height of parent" which is supported by most browsers. There are, however, other ways. Do a Google search for

faux columns

.