How can I expand CSS shorthand properties programmatically?

Question

Is there a .Net CSS parser that will allow me to parse css shorthand properties into their longhand form?

For example I'd like to take the following:

        #somediv{
            margin: 10px;
            padding: 10px 20px;
            border:5px solid #FFF;
        }

And translate it to:

        #somediv{
            margin-top: 10px;
            margin-right: 10px;
            margin-bottom: 10px;
            margin-left: 10px;
            padding-top: 10px;
            padding-right: 20px;
            padding-bottom: 10px;
            padding-left: 20px;
            border-width: 5px;
            border-style: solid;
            border-color: #FFF; 
        }

Here is a pretty good list of all the different properties I'd need to handle in this manner: http://www.dustindiaz.com/css-shorthand/

Ideally I'd like something in .Net but if there's something in another language that's open source I can probably adapt it.

Update

Without getting into too much detail as to exactly what I'm trying to do here is the basic premise:

I need to programmaticly take multiple CSS docs and merge them to create one definitive set of CSS.

So if doc 1 has :

p { padding: 10px;}

And then I add on doc 2:

p { padding-left:20px;}

The resulting CSS should be:

p { padding-top: 10px; padding-right:10px; padding-bottom:10px; padding-left:20px;}

Because the later added doc overwrites the single property. To do this accurately I would need to take every CSS and break down every property to it's lowest element first.

Answer 1

Could you give a little more detail on why you want to do this?

And are you looking for it to do correct parsing with things like:

padding:10px 15px;

into

padding-top:10px; padding-right:15px; padding-bottom:10px; padding-left:15px;

Answer 2

For regular CSS parsing I've found this to be the easiest to use:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/recipes/CSSParser.aspx

For breaking down the shorthand properties into their longhand form I've found two that can do it:

In .Net : http://www.modeltext.com/css/index.aspx

In JavaScript: http://www.glazman.org/JSCSSP/

Answer 3

The most simplest approach would is to make use of .NET's WebBrowserControl along with MsHTML(IE Renderer) and this is most reliable approach too !

//Create the instance of new webbrowser control.
        WebBrowser browser = new WebBrowser();

        //Navigate to the specified URL.
        browser.Navigate(@"test.html");

        //Wait until the webpage gets loaded completely.
        while (browser.ReadyState != WebBrowserReadyState.Complete)
        {
            Application.DoEvents();
        }


        foreach (object divElement in
            (browser.Document.GetElementsByTagName("div")))
        {
            IHTMLCurrentStyle currentStyle = ((divElement as HtmlElement)
                .DomElement as IHTMLElement2).currentStyle;

            Console.WriteLine(currentStyle.marginLeft);
            Console.WriteLine(currentStyle.marginRight);

        }

Note:

In order to get this code working you need to add reference to Microsoft.MSHTML.dll which can be found on the following location.

c:{Program Files}\microsoft.net\Primary Interop Assemblies\