How to get hex color value rather than RGB value?

Question

Using the following jQuery will get the RGB value of an element\'s background color:

$(\'#selector\').css(\'backgroundColor\');

Is there a

Answer 1

Updated @ErickPetru for rgba compatibility:

function rgb2hex(rgb) {
    rgb = rgb.match(/^rgba?\((\d+),\s*(\d+),\s*(\d+)(?:,\s*(\d+))?\)$/);
    function hex(x) {
        return ("0" + parseInt(x).toString(16)).slice(-2);
    }
    return "#" + hex(rgb[1]) + hex(rgb[2]) + hex(rgb[3]);
}

I updated the regex to match the alpha value if defined, but not use it.

Answer 2

Here is a version that also checks for transparent, I needed this since my object was to insert the result into a style attribute, where the transparent version of a hex color is actually the word "transparent"..

function rgb2hex(rgb) {
     if (  rgb.search("rgb") == -1 ) {
          return rgb;
     }
     else if ( rgb == 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)' ) {
         return 'transparent';
     }
     else {
          rgb = rgb.match(/^rgba?\((\d+),\s*(\d+),\s*(\d+)(?:,\s*(\d+))?\)$/);
          function hex(x) {
               return ("0" + parseInt(x).toString(16)).slice(-2);
          }
          return "#" + hex(rgb[1]) + hex(rgb[2]) + hex(rgb[3]); 
     }
}

Answer 3

This one looks a bit nicer:

var rgb = $('#selector').css('backgroundColor').match(/\d+/g);
var r   = parseInt(rgb[0], 10);
var g   = parseInt(rgb[1], 10);
var b   = parseInt(rgb[2], 10);
var hex = '#'+ r.toString(16) + g.toString(16) + b.toString(16);

a more succinct one-liner:

var rgb = $('#selector').css('backgroundColor').match(/\d+/g);
var hex = '#'+ Number(rgb[0]).toString(16) + Number(rgb[1]).toString(16) + Number(rgb[2]).toString(16);

forcing jQuery to always return hex:

$.cssHooks.backgroundColor = {
    get: function(elem) {
        if (elem.currentStyle)
            var bg = elem.currentStyle["backgroundColor"];
        else if (window.getComputedStyle) {
            var bg = document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(elem,
                null).getPropertyValue("background-color");
        }
        if (bg.search("rgb") == -1) {
            return bg;
        } else {
            bg = bg.match(/\d+/g);
            function hex(x) {
                return ("0" + parseInt(x).toString(16)).slice(-2);
            }
            return "#" + hex(bg[0]) + hex(bg[1]) + hex(bg[2]);
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

My beautiful non-standard solution

HTML

<div id="selector" style="background-color:#f5b405"></div>

jQuery

$("#selector").attr("style").replace("background-color:", "");

Result

#f5b405

Answer 5

Here's a solution I found that does not throw scripting errors in IE: http://haacked.com/archive/2009/12/29/convert-rgb-to-hex.aspx

Answer 6

Steven Pribilinskiy's answer drops leading zeroes, for example #ff0000 becomes #ff00.

A solution is to append a leading 0 and substring off the last 2 digits.

var rgb = $('#selector').css('backgroundColor').match(/\d+/g);
var hex = '#'+ String('0' + Number(rgb[0]).toString(16)).slice(-2) + String('0' + Number(rgb[1]).toString(16)).slice(-2) + String('0' + Number(rgb[2]).toString(16)).slice(-2);