Get CSS style from PHP

Question

I am parsing pages using Simple DOM parser. It is neat, but I would like to get the applied css style for each element. Not only the inline styles, but every style it applie

Answer 1

As Martin says, in doing this you're almost writing a browser in PHP - it's a big ask! As with any big project, the key is to break it down into more manageable steps (although some of these aren't exactly straightforward).

You'll need to:

• work out which (if any) external css files are linked to
• (to echo Gumbo): find (or develop) a way of reading and interpreting the external css, in-page css and inline css
• work out what styles apply to each element (including styles applied by .class, #id and element type), and the parents of each element - including which css rules override which other css rules, etc.

I wouldn't say it's impossible, as things like MPDF do almost the same thing (and may provide a good starting point) but I don't think there's a neat quick-fix.