Question

i have a same question asked here(wasnt able to comment on it,maybe dont have a priviledge) , i want to get css width value defined in stylesheet but not yet applied on any element in dom ,(its bootstrap css with grid with responsive media queries)

 .span6 {
 width: 570px;
 }

However solution provided in above referenced question return 0 i.e like this

$('<div/>').addClass('span6').width();

but works if i do something like this

 $('<div/>').addClass('span6').hide().appendTo('body').width();

any easy way without appending that div?

Answer 1

In order to read a CSS property value from a nonexistent element, you need to dynamically insert that element (as hidden) to the DOM, read the property and finally remove it:

var getCSS = function (prop, fromClass) {

    var $inspector = $("<div>").css('display', 'none').addClass(fromClass);
    $("body").append($inspector); // add to DOM, in order to read the CSS property
    try {
        return $inspector.css(prop);
    } finally {
        $inspector.remove(); // and remove from DOM
    }
};

jsFiddle here