JavaScript & copy style

Question

I am copying a table cell with javascript.

It works fine, just that it doesn't copy the style. I wanted to copy like below, but that didn't work. newCell.style=oldCell.style;

So I figured that for my text-align, I have to copy it like this: newCell.style.textAlign=oldCell.style.textAlign;

That worked, but whenever I add a new style item, I have to remember to register it here.

So, my problem now is how can I loop over the style and copy every item in there?

With chrome, I managed to do it like this:

 var strAttribute = GetDomNameFromAttributeName(oRow.cells[1].style[0]);
    var styletocopy = eval('oRow.cells[1].style.'+strAttribute);
    eval("newCell.style."+strAttribute+"='"+styletocopy+"'"); // //newCell.style.textAlign='center';

But that doesn't work with IE. Haven't tested it with FF, but assume chrome compatibiity.

Is there any way to loop over the style elements in IE? Or is there any better way to copy all style elements?

Answer 1

eval('oRow.cells[1].style.'+strAttribute)

Never use eval like this(*). In JavaScript you can access a property whose name is stored in a string using square brackets. object.plop is the same as object['plop']:

to.style[name]= from.style[name];

(*: never use eval at all if you can help it. There are only a few very specific and rare occasions you need it.)

Is there any way to loop over the style elements

The style object is supposed to support the DOM Level 2 CSS CSSStyleDeclaration interface. You could loop over the rules and apply them to another element like this:

for (var i= from.style.length; i-->0;) {
    var name= from.style[i];
    to.style.setProperty(name,
        from.style.getPropertyValue(name),
        priority= from.style.getPropertyPriority(name)
    );
}

in IE?

No, IE does not support the whole CSSStyleDeclaration interface and the above won't work. However there is a simpler way not involving looping that will work on IE and the other browsers too:

to.style.cssText= from.style.cssText;

As simple as that! IE doesn't quite preserve the CSS text the way it should, but the difference doesn't matter for simple inline style copying.

However, as Pikrass said (+1), if you are copying a whole element and not just the styles, cloneNode is by far the most elegant way to do that.