Cross-browser (IE8-) getComputedStyle with Javascript?

Question

Since IE8 does not support getComputedStyle, we can only use currentStyle. However, it does not return the real "computed" value for some properties.

For example:

<style type="text/css">
#div {/* no properties are defined here */}
</style>

<div id="div">div</div>

// returns "medium" instead of 0px
document.getElementById('div').currentStyle.borderLeftWidth

// returns "auto" instead of 0px
document.getElementById('div').currentStyle.marginLeft

// returns "undefined" instead of 1
document.getElementById('div').currentStyle.opacity

Does anyone have a cross-browser solution for all properties without using jQuery or other Javascript libraries?

Answer 1

Here's a cross-browser function to get a computed style...

getStyle = function (el, prop) {
    if (typeof getComputedStyle !== 'undefined') {
        return getComputedStyle(el, null).getPropertyValue(prop);
    } else {
        return el.currentStyle[prop];
    }
}

You may store it as an utility within an object, or just use it as provided. Here's a sample demo!

// Create paragraph element and append some text to it
var p = document.createElement('p');
p.appendChild(document.createTextNode('something for fun'));

// Append element to the body
document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(p);

// Set hex color to this element
p.style.color = '#999';

// alert element's color using getStyle function
alert(getStyle(p, 'color'));

Check this demo to see it in action:

getStyle = function(el, prop) {
  if (getComputedStyle !== 'undefined') {
    return getComputedStyle(el, null).getPropertyValue(prop);
  } else {
    return el.currentStyle[prop];
  }
}

// Create paragraph element and append some text to it
var p = document.createElement('p');
p.appendChild(document.createTextNode('something for fun'));

// Append element to the body
document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(p);

// Set hex color to this element
p.style.color = '#999';

// alert element's color using getStyle function
console.log(getStyle(p, 'color'));

p {
  color: red;
}

Answer 2

You don't want to use jquery but there's nothing preventing you from peeking into the code and see how they dealt with it :-)

Inside jquery code there's a reference about this comment which seems to the point (read also the whole article). Here's the jquery code that should deal with your problem:

else if ( document.documentElement.currentStyle ) {
    curCSS = function( elem, name ) {
        var left, rsLeft,
            ret = elem.currentStyle && elem.currentStyle[ name ],
        style = elem.style;

    // Avoid setting ret to empty string here
    // so we don't default to auto
    if ( ret == null && style && style[ name ] ) {
        ret = style[ name ];
    }

    // From the awesome hack by Dean Edwards
    // http://erik.eae.net/archives/2007/07/27/18.54.15/#comment-102291

    // If we're not dealing with a regular pixel number
    // but a number that has a weird ending, we need to convert it to pixels
    // but not position css attributes, as those are proportional to the parent element instead
    // and we can't measure the parent instead because it might trigger a "stacking dolls" problem
    if ( rnumnonpx.test( ret ) && !rposition.test( name ) ) {

        // Remember the original values
        left = style.left;
        rsLeft = elem.runtimeStyle && elem.runtimeStyle.left;

        // Put in the new values to get a computed value out
        if ( rsLeft ) {
            elem.runtimeStyle.left = elem.currentStyle.left;
        }
        style.left = name === "fontSize" ? "1em" : ret;
        ret = style.pixelLeft + "px";

        // Revert the changed values
        style.left = left;
        if ( rsLeft ) {
            elem.runtimeStyle.left = rsLeft;
        }
    }

    return ret === "" ? "auto" : ret;
};
}

Answer 3

instead of :

getComputedStyle !== 'undefined'

it should be :

typeof getComputedStyle !== 'undefined'

otherwise it would never works.

Answer 4

This will not work for all styles but will work for dimensions (which is what I needed).

Instead of trying to guess what styles are applied, simply use the position in pixels of each of the four sides of a box-like element to calculate the dimensions. This will also work back to IE 5 and FF 3.

height = elem.getBoundingClientRect().bottom - elem.getBoundingClientRect().top;
width = elem.getBoundingClientRect().right - elem.getBoundingClientRect().left;

See also: getBoundingClientRect is awesome

If this still doesn't work for you, check out this fiddle I put together for calculating the inside width of a box. It uses the following as a shim for getComputedStyle:

/**
 * getComputedStyle function for IE8
 * borrowed from:
 * http://missouristate.info/scripts/2013/common.js
 */
"getComputedStyle" in window || function() {
  function c(a, b, g, e) {
    var h = b[g];
    b = parseFloat(h);
    h = h.split(/\d/)[0];
    e = null !== e ? e : /%|em/.test(h) && a.parentElement ? c(a.parentElement, a.parentElement.currentStyle, "fontSize", null) : 16;
    a = "fontSize" == g ? e : /width/i.test(g) ? a.clientWidth : a.clientHeight;
    return "em" == h ? b * e : "in" == h ? 96 * b : "pt" == h ? 96 * b / 72 : "%" == h ? b / 100 * a : b;
  }
  function a(a, c) {
    var b = "border" == c ? "Width" : "", e = c + "Top" + b, h = c + "Right" + b, l = c + "Bottom" + b, b = c + "Left" + b;
    a[c] = (a[e] == a[h] == a[l] == a[b] ? [a[e]] : a[e] == a[l] && a[b] == a[h] ? [a[e], a[h]] : a[b] == a[h] ? [a[e], a[h], a[l]] : [a[e], a[h], a[l], a[b]]).join(" ");
  }
  function b(b) {
    var d, g = b.currentStyle, e = c(b, g, "fontSize", null);
    for (d in g) {
      /width|height|margin.|padding.|border.+W/.test(d) && "auto" !== this[d] ? this[d] = c(b, g, d, e) + "px" : "styleFloat" === d ? this["float"] = g[d] : this[d] = g[d];
    }
    a(this, "margin");
    a(this, "padding");
    a(this, "border");
    this.fontSize = e + "px";
    return this;
  }
  b.prototype = {};
  window.getComputedStyle = function(a) {
    return new b(a);
  };
}();

Answer 5

This was too big for an edit, so it was made an answer but it doesn't provide a full answer to the question at hand.

---

Gabriel's answer fails with a property like "backgroundColor" or "background-color" depending on the browser version because .getPropertyValue expects the CSS property name and el.currentStyle[prop] needs the camel-case version.

Here's a fixed version which always expects the camel-case version:

function getStyle(el, prop) {
    return (typeof getComputedStyle !== 'undefined' ?
        getComputedStyle(el, null) :
        el.currentStyle
    )[prop]; // avoid getPropertyValue altogether
}