When the overflow property is set on an element, it's not possible to retrieve that property back from the element. Instead, the overflow is applied to overflow-x and overflow-y (which can be retrieved), and element.style.overflow will continue to return a null string.
IE6, IE7, FF2, FF3, and Opera 9.23 all return the value which is set for the overflow property ('scroll' in the case of the demo). FF2 and FF3 both report 'scroll' for the overflow-x / overflow-y value as well -- Opera does not (and I don't have IE handy to test).
(In reply to comment #1) > IE6, IE7, FF2, FF3, and Opera 9.23 all return the value which is set for the > overflow property ('scroll' in the case of the demo). FF2 and FF3 both report > 'scroll' for the overflow-x / overflow-y value as well -- Opera does not (and I > don't have IE handy to test). MSIE 7 does not report values for overflow-x or overflow-y using the test case. Confirmed bug with a local debug build of WebKit r28774 with Safari 3.0.4 on Mac OS X 10.4.11 (8S165).
I am unable to reproduce this bug in Safari 15.6 using the test case from URL field: *** STEPS TAKEN *** Open URL and then from Developer Tools, go to Console and type: document.getElementById("outer").style.overflow; and it will return "scroll" rather than 'null' string as mentioned in Comment 0. It is same across all browsers (Chrome Canary 106 and Firefox Nightly 105). I am going to mark this as "RESOLVED CONFIGURATION CHANGED", in case if it is incorrect and this bug is reproducible or I have tested it wrong. Please reopen it. Thanks!