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web api instance method

HTMLInputElement: setSelectionRange() method

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The HTMLInputElement.setSelectionRange() method sets the start and end positions of the current text selection in an <input> or <textarea> element. This updates the selection state immediately, though the visual highlight only appears when the element is focused.

Optionally, you can specify the direction in which selection should be considered to have occurred. This lets you indicate, for example, that the selection was set by the user clicking and dragging from the end of the selected text toward the beginning.

This method updates the selectionStart, selectionEnd, and selectionDirection properties in one call, regardless of whether the element is focused. The visual selection highlight will only appear when the element has focus.

The element must be of one of the following input types: password, search, tel, text, or url. Otherwise the browser throws an InvalidStateError exception.

If you wish to select all text of an input element, you can use the HTMLInputElement.select() method instead.

Syntax

setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd)
setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd, selectionDirection)

Parameters

  • selectionStart

    • : The 0-based index of the first selected character. An index greater than the length of the element’s value is treated as pointing to the end of the value.

  • selectionEnd

    • : The 0-based index of the character after the last selected character. An index greater than the length of the element’s value is treated as pointing to the end of the value. If selectionEnd is less than selectionStart, then both are treated as the value of selectionEnd.

  • selectionDirection Optional

    • : A string indicating the direction in which the selection is considered to have been performed. Possible values:
      • "forward"
      • "backward"
      • "none" if the direction is unknown or irrelevant. Default value.

Return value

None (undefined).

Exceptions

Examples

Click the button in this example to select the third, fourth, and fifth characters in the text box (“zil” in the word “Mozilla”).

HTML

<input type="text" id="text-box" size="20" value="Mozilla" />
<button>Select text</button>

JavaScript

function selectText() {
  const input = document.getElementById("text-box");
  input.focus();
  input.setSelectionRange(2, 5);
}

document.querySelector("button").addEventListener("click", selectText);

Result

Interactive exampleOpen the canonical MDN source to run this embedded demo.

Specifications

SpecificationsStandards references are available on the canonical MDN page.

Browser compatibility

Browser compatibilityCompatibility data is available on the canonical MDN page.

See also