[javascript] How to get hex color value rather than RGB value?

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

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

Is there a way to get the hex value rather than the RGB?

Readable && Reg-exp free (no Reg-exp)

I've created a function that uses readable basic functions and no reg-exps.
The function accepts color in hex, rgb or rgba CSS format and returns hex representation.
EDIT: there was a bug with parsing out rgba() format, fixed...

function getHexColor( color ){
    //if color is already in hex, just return it...
    if( color.indexOf('#') != -1 ) return color;
    
    //leave only "R,G,B" :
    color = color
                .replace("rgba", "") //must go BEFORE rgb replace
                .replace("rgb", "")
                .replace("(", "")
                .replace(")", "");
    color = color.split(","); // get Array["R","G","B"]
    
    // 0) add leading #
    // 1) add leading zero, so we get 0XY or 0X
    // 2) append leading zero with parsed out int value of R/G/B
    //    converted to HEX string representation
    // 3) slice out 2 last chars (get last 2 chars) => 
    //    => we get XY from 0XY and 0X stays the same
    return  "#"
            + ( '0' + parseInt(color[0], 10).toString(16) ).slice(-2)
            + ( '0' + parseInt(color[1], 10).toString(16) ).slice(-2)
            + ( '0' + parseInt(color[2], 10).toString(16) ).slice(-2);
}

Here is my solution, also does touppercase by the use of an argument and checks for other possible white-spaces and capitalisation in the supplied string.

var a = "rgb(10, 128, 255)";
var b = "rgb( 10, 128, 255)";
var c = "rgb(10, 128, 255 )";
var d = "rgb ( 10, 128, 255 )";
var e = "RGB ( 10, 128, 255 )";
var f = "rgb(10,128,255)";
var g = "rgb(10, 128,)";

var rgbToHex = (function () {
    var rx = /^rgb\s*\(\s*(\d+)\s*,\s*(\d+)\s*,\s*(\d+)\s*\)$/i;

    function pad(num) {
        if (num.length === 1) {
            num = "0" + num;
        }

        return num;
    }

    return function (rgb, uppercase) {
        var rxArray = rgb.match(rx),
            hex;

        if (rxArray !== null) {
            hex = pad(parseInt(rxArray[1], 10).toString(16)) + pad(parseInt(rxArray[2], 10).toString(16)) + pad(parseInt(rxArray[3], 10).toString(16));

            if (uppercase === true) {
                hex = hex.toUpperCase();
            }

            return hex;
        }

        return;
    };
}());

console.log(rgbToHex(a));
console.log(rgbToHex(b, true));
console.log(rgbToHex(c));
console.log(rgbToHex(d));
console.log(rgbToHex(e));
console.log(rgbToHex(f));
console.log(rgbToHex(g));

On jsfiddle

Speed comparison on jsperf

A further improvement could be to trim() the rgb string

var rxArray = rgb.trim().match(rx),

color class taken from bootstrap color picker

// Color object
var Color = function(val) {
    this.value = {
        h: 1,
        s: 1,
        b: 1,
        a: 1
    };
    this.setColor(val);
};

Color.prototype = {
    constructor: Color,

    //parse a string to HSB
    setColor: function(val){
        val = val.toLowerCase();
        var that = this;
        $.each( CPGlobal.stringParsers, function( i, parser ) {
            var match = parser.re.exec( val ),
            values = match && parser.parse( match ),
            space = parser.space||'rgba';
            if ( values ) {
                if (space === 'hsla') {
                    that.value = CPGlobal.RGBtoHSB.apply(null, CPGlobal.HSLtoRGB.apply(null, values));
                } else {
                    that.value = CPGlobal.RGBtoHSB.apply(null, values);
                }
                return false;
            }
        });
    },

    setHue: function(h) {
        this.value.h = 1- h;
    },

    setSaturation: function(s) {
        this.value.s = s;
    },

    setLightness: function(b) {
        this.value.b = 1- b;
    },

    setAlpha: function(a) {
        this.value.a = parseInt((1 - a)*100, 10)/100;
    },

    // HSBtoRGB from RaphaelJS
    // https://github.com/DmitryBaranovskiy/raphael/
    toRGB: function(h, s, b, a) {
        if (!h) {
            h = this.value.h;
            s = this.value.s;
            b = this.value.b;
        }
        h *= 360;
        var R, G, B, X, C;
        h = (h % 360) / 60;
        C = b * s;
        X = C * (1 - Math.abs(h % 2 - 1));
        R = G = B = b - C;

        h = ~~h;
        R += [C, X, 0, 0, X, C][h];
        G += [X, C, C, X, 0, 0][h];
        B += [0, 0, X, C, C, X][h];
        return {
            r: Math.round(R*255),
            g: Math.round(G*255),
            b: Math.round(B*255),
            a: a||this.value.a
        };
    },

    toHex: function(h, s, b, a){
        var rgb = this.toRGB(h, s, b, a);
        return '#'+((1 << 24) | (parseInt(rgb.r) << 16) | (parseInt(rgb.g) << 8) | parseInt(rgb.b)).toString(16).substr(1);
    },

    toHSL: function(h, s, b, a){
        if (!h) {
            h = this.value.h;
            s = this.value.s;
            b = this.value.b;
        }
        var H = h,
        L = (2 - s) * b,
        S = s * b;
        if (L > 0 && L <= 1) {
            S /= L;
        } else {
            S /= 2 - L;
        }
        L /= 2;
        if (S > 1) {
            S = 1;
        }
        return {
            h: H,
            s: S,
            l: L,
            a: a||this.value.a
        };
    }
};

how to use

var color = new Color("RGB(0,5,5)");
color.toHex()

Since the question was using JQuery, here’s a JQuery plugin based on Daniel Elliott’s code:

$.fn.cssAsHex = function(colorProp) {

    var hexDigits = '0123456789abcdef';

    function hex(x) {
        return isNaN(x) ? '00' : hexDigits[(x - x % 16) / 16] + hexDigits[x % 16];
    };

    // Convert RGB color to Hex format
    function rgb2hex(rgb) {
        var rgbRegex = rgb.match(/^rgb\((\d+),\s*(\d+),\s*(\d+)\)$/);
        return '#' + hex(rgbRegex[1]) + hex(rgbRegex[2]) + hex(rgbRegex[3]);
    };

    return rgb2hex(this.css(colorProp));
};

Use it like:

var hexBackgroundColor = $('#myElement').cssAsHex('background-color');

To all the Functional Programming lovers, here is a somewhat functional approach :)

const getHexColor = (rgbValue) =>
  rgbValue.replace("rgb(", "").replace(")", "").split(",")
    .map(colorValue => (colorValue > 15 ? "0" : "") + colorValue.toString(16))
    .reduce((acc, hexValue) => acc + hexValue, "#")

then use it like:

const testRGB = "rgb(13,23,12)"
getHexColor(testRGB)

Most browsers seem to return the RGB value when using:

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

Only I.E (only 6 tested so far) returns the Hex value.

To avoid error messages in I.E, you could wrap the function in an if statement:

function rgb2hex(rgb) {
     if (  rgb.search("rgb") == -1 ) {
          return rgb;
     } 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]); 
     }
}

Just to add to @Justin's answer above..

it should be

var rgb = document.querySelector('#selector').style['background-color'];
return '#' + rgb.substr(4, rgb.indexOf(')') - 4).split(',').map((color) => String("0" + parseInt(color).toString(16)).slice(-2)).join('');

As the above parse int functions truncates leading zeroes, thus produces incorrect color codes of 5 or 4 letters may be... i.e. for rgb(216, 160, 10) it produces #d8a0a while it should be #d8a00a.

Thanks

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);

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

Convert RGB to Hex

I am using Jasmine protractor and I was getting errors like - Expected [ 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)' ] to contain '#fff'. Below function worked fine for me.

function RGBAToHexA(test:string) {
let sep = test.toString().indexOf(",") > -1 ? "," : " ";
const rgba = test.toString().substring(5).split(")")[0].split(sep);
console.log(rgba)
let r = (+rgba[0]).toString(16),
  g = (+rgba[1]).toString(16),
  b = (+rgba[2]).toString(16),
  a = Math.round(+rgba[3] * 255).toString(16);

    if (r.length == 1)
        r = "0" + r;
    if (g.length == 1)
        g = "0" + g;
    if (b.length == 1)
        b = "0" + b;
    if (a.length == 1)
        a = "0" + a;

return "#" + r + g + b + a;

}

describe('Check CSS', function() {
 
it('should check css of login page', async function(){
        browser.waitForAngularEnabled(true);
        browser.actions().mouseMove(element(by.css('.btn-auth, .btn-auth:hover'))).perform(); // mouse hover on button
        csspage.Loc_auth_btn.getCssValue('color').then(function(color){
            console.log(RGBAToHexA(color))
            expect( RGBAToHexA(color)).toContain(cssData.hoverauth.color);

        })

       

Improved function "hex"

function hex(x){
    return isNaN(x) ? "00" : hexDigits[x >> 4] + hexDigits[x & 0xf];
    // or option without hexDigits array
    return (x >> 4).toString(16)+(x & 0xf).toString(16);
}

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]); 
     }
}

full cases (rgb, rgba, transparent...etc) solution (coffeeScript)

 rgb2hex: (rgb, transparentDefault=null)->
    return null unless rgb
    return rgb if rgb.indexOf('#') != -1
    return transparentDefault || 'transparent' if rgb == 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)'
    rgb = rgb.match(/^rgba?\((\d+),\s*(\d+),\s*(\d+)(?:,\s*(\d+))?\)$/);
    hex = (x)->
      ("0" + parseInt(x).toString(16)).slice(-2)

    '#' + hex(rgb[1]) + hex(rgb[2]) + hex(rgb[3])

My beautiful non-standard solution

HTML

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

jQuery

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

Result

#f5b405

Try

// c - color str e.g."rgb(12,233,43)", result color hex e.g. "#0ce92b"
let rgb2hex= c=> '#'+c.match(/\d+/g).map(x=>(+x).toString(16).padStart(2,0)).join``

// rgb - color str e.g."rgb(12,233,43)", result color hex e.g. "#0ce92b"_x000D_
let rgb2hex= c=> '#'+c.match(/\d+/g).map(x=>(+x).toString(16).padStart(2,0)).join``_x000D_
_x000D_
console.log(rgb2hex("rgb(12,233,43"));

Here is the cleaner solution I wrote based on @Matt suggestion:

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

Some browsers already returns colors as hexadecimal (as of Internet Explorer 8 and below). If you need to deal with those cases, just append a condition inside the function, like @gfrobenius suggested:

function rgb2hex(rgb) {
    if (/^#[0-9A-F]{6}$/i.test(rgb)) return rgb;

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

If you're using jQuery and want a more complete approach, you can use CSS Hooks available since jQuery 1.4.3, as I showed when answering this question: Can I force jQuery.css("backgroundColor") returns on hexadecimal format?

my compact version

//Function to convert rgb color to hex format
function rgb2hex(rgb) {
    if(/^#/.test(rgb))return rgb;// if returns colors as hexadecimal
    let re = /\d+/g;
    let hex = x => (x >> 4).toString(16)+(x & 0xf).toString(16);
    return "#"+hex(re.exec(rgb))+hex(re.exec(rgb))+hex(re.exec(rgb));
}

Here's an ES6 one liner that doesn't use jQuery:

var rgb = document.querySelector('#selector').style['background-color'];
return '#' + rgb.substr(4, rgb.indexOf(')') - 4).split(',').map((color) => parseInt(color).toString(16)).join('');

Same answer like @Jim F answer but ES6 syntax , so, less instructions :

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

Function that returns background color of an element in hex.

function getBgColorHex(elem){
    var color = elem.css('background-color')
    var hex;
    if(color.indexOf('#')>-1){
        //for IE
        hex = color;
    } else {
        var rgb = color.match(/\d+/g);
        hex = '#'+ ('0' + parseInt(rgb[0], 10).toString(16)).slice(-2) + ('0' + parseInt(rgb[1], 10).toString(16)).slice(-2) + ('0' + parseInt(rgb[2], 10).toString(16)).slice(-2);
    }
    return hex;
}

usage example:

$('#div1').click(function(){
   alert(getBgColorHex($(this));
}

jsfiddle

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.

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]);
        }
    }
}