How to parse CSS font shorthand format

Question

I need to parse the CSS font shorthand format into the separate components (font-family, font-size, font-weight, ...). This shorthand format looks pretty complicated. Here are two examples:

10px sans-serif
bold italic small-caps 1em/1.5em verdana,sans-serif

Before I start writing a parser for it, is there an already existing parser out there I could use (Preferably written in JavaScript)?

Answer 1

Here's a "temporary DOM element and using jquery's css() function" solution:

http://jsfiddle.net/thirtydot/tpSsE/2/

var $test = $('<span />');
$test.css('font', 'bold italic small-caps 1em/1.5em verdana,sans-serif');

alert($test.css('fontWeight'));
alert($test.css('fontStyle'));
alert($test.css('fontVariant'));
alert($test.css('fontSize'));
alert($test.css('lineHeight'));
alert($test.css('fontFamily'));

​

Answer 2

Pure free-range Javascript version:

var parsedStyleForCSS = function(cssString){
    var el = document.createElement("span");
    el.setAttribute("style", cssString);

    return el.style; // CSSStyleDeclaration object
};

var parsedStyle = parsedStyleForCSS("font: bold italic small-caps 1em/1.5em verdana,sans-serif");

console.log(parsedStyle["fontWeight"]); // bold
console.log(parsedStyle["fontStyle"]); // italic
console.log(parsedStyle["fontVariant"]); // small-caps
console.log(parsedStyle["fontSize"]); // 1em
console.log(parsedStyle["lineHeight"]); // 1.5em
console.log(parsedStyle["fontFamily"]); // verdana, sans-serif

If you're looking to do something similar with complete stylesheets, see this answer: Parsing CSS in JavaScript / jQuery