How to detect current web page or element direction (rtl/ltr) or any other attribute in javascript?

How can i read any attribute that currently effects an element that is not necessarily style? one such attribute would be "dir".

Recently I had similar problem, you can get element's property with window.getComputedStyle and element.currentStyle methods:

    var elem = document.getElementById('test');
    if (window.getComputedStyle) { // all browsers
        cs = window.getComputedStyle(elem, null).getPropertyValue('direction');
    } else {
        cs = elem.currentStyle.direction; // IE5-8
    }
    alert(cs);

jsfiddle ; compatibility info