Get the default value of a CSS property

Written byPhuoc Nguyen

Created

28 Feb, 2020

Category

Level 2 — Intermediate

The function below returns the default value of CSS `property` for given `tagName`:

const getDefaultProperty = function (tagName, property) {
    // Create new element
    const ele = document.createElement(tagName);

    // Append to the body
    document.body.appendChild(ele);

    // Get the styles of new element
    const styles = window.getComputedStyle(ele);

    // Get the value of property
    const value = styles.getPropertyValue(property);

    // Remove the element
    document.body.removeChild(ele);

    // Return the value of property
    return value;
};

Good to know

The getComputedStyle() method returns the live styles of given element. It means that it's updated automatically if the element styles are changed.

That's why we need to get the value of property before removing the element. The following code doesn't return the correct value:
js
...
const styles = window.getComputedStyle(ele);
document.body.removeChild(ele);

// Always return "" because the element is already
// removed from the document
return styles.getPropertyValue(property);

We can use it, for example, to get the default font size of `div` tag:

getDefaultProperty('div', 'font-size');

// Or
getDefaultProperty('div', 'fontSize');

#See also

Get CSS styles of an element

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Get the default value of a CSS property

#See also

Questions? 🙋

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