Selection: getRangeAt() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2017.

The getRangeAt() method of the Selection interface returns a range object representing a currently selected range.

If the endpoints of the selected range are within a shadow tree then JavaScript does not have visibility of the shadow nodes, and the method should re-scope the range to include the host element that contains the end point. In practice most browsers do not yet implement this behavior, and the returned range is unpredictable.

Note: When selecting within nodes that might contain a shadow root, you can use Selection.getComposedRanges() (if supported) to get a selection range inside a shadow tree, or to reliably re-scope the selection to the host node.

Syntax

js
getRangeAt(index)

Parameters

index

The zero-based index of the range to return. A negative number or a number greater than or equal to Selection.rangeCount will result in an error.

Return value

The specified Range object.

Examples

js
let ranges = [];

sel = window.getSelection();

for (let i = 0; i < sel.rangeCount; i++) {
  ranges[i] = sel.getRangeAt(i);
}
/* Each item in the ranges array is now
 * a range object representing one of the
 * ranges in the current selection */

Specifications

Specification
Selection API
# dom-selection-getrangeat

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also