Webmaster Forum / HTML, CSS, Scripts / CSS / September 2007

I know this is a simple problem but it bedevils me.

I'd like to have a container with two columns with the following
properties:

1. Both columns dynamically adjust their width to fit their
contents, with the total width of both columns completely filling
the width of the container block.

2. When the browser window gets narrow, the column blocks should stay
side-by-side and not jump one below the other.

3. If one column has less information vertically than the other, the
column with more information won't wrap its text under the column
with less information.

4. If the width of one column is defined narrower than whatever I
put in it, the column block adjusts its width to fit throughout the
entire height of the container block that holds both columns.

A table having 1 row and 2 cells do exactly that.  I'd like to
duplicate that behavior with CSS because I suspect using tables
is messing up something else unrelated to this problem.  I'm not
displaying tabular data here, so I don't need tables, but the column
behavior I want is sure easy to get using tables.  I can get some of
the above behavior with CSS but not all of it.  Any suggestions?

-A