$('selector').css('background-color') returning different values depending on the browser

[mordy@…]

JQuery prides itself on being cross browser.

if I run
$('selector').css('background-color');
or
$('selector').css('backgroundColor');

In firefox or chrome, it returns "rgb(255,255,255)"
In IE(8 & 7), it was returning "#ffffff".

Neither is more correct, but the return value should be consistent.

Bug was first observed in version 1.4.4 and upgrading to 1.6.2 didn't fix it.

​http://jsfiddle.net/LX2H2/2/

[timmywil]

I don't think there's anything we can do unless we want to include a color converter in jQuery.

[mordy@…]

Thats disappointing .. the whole point of using jquery is that is 100% crossbrowser, all functions return exactly the same value in every circumstance.

why cant it be fixed?

[timmywil]

I shouldn't say cantfix. I'll say wontfix instead because the amount of code required to normalize the color value types would be significant and that's probably not something users would want us to add to jQuery. However, there are conversion libraries out there if that is needed including ​jQuery color.

[mordy@…]

Can this page ​http://api.jquery.com/css/ be changed to reflect that there is this crossbrowseer issue.

[timmywil]

I don't think the issue is common enough to warrant an addition to the documentation of the css method. Whether hex or rgb, it is still a usable value so the issue is only when comparing the returned background-color to a string, which I imagine would be very rare.

[dmethvin]

Oh well, I just added a sentence to the effect and the post collided with timmywil's comment.