4.2.2. RGBA color values
The RGB color model is extended in this specification to include “alpha” to allow specification of the opacity of a color. See simple alpha compositing for details. These examples all specify the same color:
em { color: rgb(255,0,0) } /* integer range 0 - 255 */
em { color: rgba(255,0,0,1) /* the same, with explicit opacity of 1 */
em { color: rgb(100%,0%,0%) } /* float range 0.0% - 100.0% */
em { color: rgba(100%,0%,0%,1) } /* the same, with explicit opacity of 1 */
Unlike RGB values, there is no hexadecimal notation for an RGBA value.
The format of an RGBA value in the functional notation is ‘rgba(’ followed by a comma-separated list of three numerical values (either three integer values or three percentage values), followed by an <alphavalue>, followed by ‘)’. The integer value 255 corresponds to 100%, rgba(255,255,255,0.

= rgba(100%,100%,100%,0.

. White space characters are allowed around the numerical values.
Implementations must clip the red, green, and blue components of RGBA color values to the device gamut according to the rules for the RGB color value composed of those components.
These examples specify effects that are possible with the rgba() notation:
p { color: rgba(0,0,255,0.5) } /* semi-transparent solid blue */
p { color: rgba(100%, 50%, 0%, 0.1) } /* very transparent solid orange */
Note. If RGBA values are not supported by a user agent, they should be treated like unrecognized values per the CSS forward compatibility parsing rules ([CSS21], Chapter 4). RGBA values must not be treated as simply an RGB value with the opacity ignored.