How can I read the applied CSS-counter value?

Question

Say you have a CSS 2.1 counter like

ol {
  counter-reset: section;
  list-style-type: none;
}
li:before {
  counter-increment: section;
  content: counters(section, ".") " ";
}


<ol>
  <li>itemA</li>          <!-- 1     -->
  <li>itemB               <!-- 2     -->
    <ol>
      <li>itemC</li>      <!-- 2.1   -->
      <li id="foo">itemD</li>      <!-- 2.2   -->

(see https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS_Counters "nesting counters")

Is there a way to read/get the :before.content ("2.2" in this case) for <li id="foo"> in JavaScript?

Edit: In my case a Mozilla-only solution would suffice. But there really seems to be no way to access this information. At least I didn't find any at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS_Counters ff.

Answer 1

None that I can think of, no. :before pseudo-elements are not part of the DOM so there is no way to address their content.

You could make a function that scanned the stylesheet's DOM for the :before rules and worked out which rules the browser had applied where, but it would be incredibly messy.