window.getselection() not working in FF and chrome

Question

I have texbox in my page and I am trying to get the length from the textbox. I know how to get the length in IE, but the following code is not working in FF and chrome.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<script>
function myFunction(obj)
{
alert("mouse up");
var r=window.getSelection().createRange();
alert(r.text.length);

}
</script>
</head>
<body>

<textarea id="myArea" cols="30" spellcheck="false" onmouseup=myFunction(this)>Select some text within this field.</textarea>


</body>
</html>

Duplicate of [window.getSelection() of textarea not working in firefox?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20419515/window-getselection-of-textarea-not-working-in-firefox), which has better answers. [window.getSelection not working on textareas in Firefox is a fabulously old bug in FF](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85686). — Dan Dascalescu, Sep 04 '15 at 23:03

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Textareas and text inputs have a different selection API from the main document selection. Use selectionStart and selectionEnd properties of the textarea/input.

function myFunction(obj) {
    var selectedText = obj.value.slice(obj.selectionStart, obj.selectionEnd);
    alert(selectedText);
}

If you need support for IE <= 8, there is a different API again. See Caret position in textarea, in characters from the start

window.getselection() not working in FF and chrome

1 Answers1