# Extract Style Attributes from Style[]

Can you extract the Style attributes from a variable. For example:

var = Style["aString", Bold, 24]


You can get back "aString" by using ToString[var] but I am not able to get the attributes {Bold, 24}.

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Examine its FullForm:

var = Style["aString", Bold, 24];
var // InputForm

(* Out: Style["aString", Bold, 24] *)


Exactly as you typed in. You can manipulate it just as you would any Mathematica expression. For example:

List @@ Rest[var]

(* Out: {Bold, 24} *)

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Did not think of replacing the Head on var. Perfect, thank you so much. Peter –  pjc42 Dec 27 '13 at 1:10
There ought to be a way to compare Style["aString", Bold, 24] and Style["aString", FontWeight -> Bold, FontSize -> 24]... –  rm -rf Dec 27 '13 at 1:25
@rm-rf Isn't there? var2 = Style["aString", Bold, 24]; var1 = Style["aString", FontWeight -> Bold, FontSize -> 24]; OrderedQ[{var2, var1}] returns a reasonable result. Do you want var1 and var2 to be the same? –  Mark McClure Dec 27 '13 at 1:33
@MarkMcClure Yes, the same. I understand why Mathematica sees them differently and why SameQ is False... I was just surprised that both forms didn't have the same underlying representation (I thought Style["aString", FontWeight -> Bold, FontSize -> 24] would auto-evaluate to Style["aString", Bold, 24] or something like that). –  rm -rf Dec 27 '13 at 1:36
@rm-rf So you'd like Equal[var2,var1] to evaluate to True in the same way that Equal[1,1.0] evaluates. I can see that. But, are there other situations where Equal[a,b] evaluates to True where a and b are non-identical, non-numeric expressions? I'm not sure off the top of my head, but I haven't been thinking about code so much lately. It's a little far afield of the OP's intention, perhaps. :) –  Mark McClure Dec 27 '13 at 1:53