Get cursor position (in characters) within a text Input field

Solution 1:

Easier update:

Use field.selectionStart example in this answer.

Thanks to @commonSenseCode for pointing this out.

Old answer:

Found this solution. Not jquery based but there is no problem to integrate it to jquery:

/*
** Returns the caret (cursor) position of the specified text field (oField).
** Return value range is 0-oField.value.length.
*/
function doGetCaretPosition (oField) {

  // Initialize
  var iCaretPos = 0;

  // IE Support
  if (document.selection) {

    // Set focus on the element
    oField.focus();

    // To get cursor position, get empty selection range
    var oSel = document.selection.createRange();

    // Move selection start to 0 position
    oSel.moveStart('character', -oField.value.length);

    // The caret position is selection length
    iCaretPos = oSel.text.length;
  }

  // Firefox support
  else if (oField.selectionStart || oField.selectionStart == '0')
    iCaretPos = oField.selectionDirection=='backward' ? oField.selectionStart : oField.selectionEnd;

  // Return results
  return iCaretPos;
}

Solution 2:

Use selectionStart. It is compatible with all major browsers.

document.getElementById('foobar').addEventListener('keyup', e => {
  console.log('Caret at: ', e.target.selectionStart)
})

<input id="foobar" />

This works only when no type is defined or type="text" or type="textarea" on the input.

Solution 3:

I've wrapped the functionality in bezmax's answer into jQuery if anyone wants to use it.

(function($) {
    $.fn.getCursorPosition = function() {
        var input = this.get(0);
        if (!input) return; // No (input) element found
        if ('selectionStart' in input) {
            // Standard-compliant browsers
            return input.selectionStart;
        } else if (document.selection) {
            // IE
            input.focus();
            var sel = document.selection.createRange();
            var selLen = document.selection.createRange().text.length;
            sel.moveStart('character', -input.value.length);
            return sel.text.length - selLen;
        }
    }
})(jQuery);

Solution 4:

Got a very simple solution. Try the following code with verified result-

<html>
<head>
<script>
    function f1(el) {
    var val = el.value;
    alert(val.slice(0, el.selectionStart).length);
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<input type=text id=t1 value=abcd>
    <button onclick="f1(document.getElementById('t1'))">check position</button>
</body>
</html>

I'm giving you the fiddle_demo

Get cursor position (in characters) within a text Input field

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

Solution 3:

Solution 4:

Related

Recent Posts