How to Get the Start and End Offsets of a Text Selection Within a Container Element?

Get the Starting and Ending Positions of a Text Selection Relative to Its Container

Problem:

Consider the following HTML:

<div>
<p>Suppose a user selects the text "home" from this element. How can we determine the start and end offsets of this selection relative to the #parent container?</p>
<p><strong>Answer:</strong></p>
<p>The range.startOffset property appears to provide the desired functionality, but it represents an offset only within the immediate container. Moreover, it only represents a character offset if the container is a text node.</p>
<p><strong>Updated Code:</strong></p>
<p>Here's an updated version of the code that correctly returns both the start and end offsets:</p>
<pre class="brush:php;toolbar:false">function getSelectionCharacterOffsetWithin(element) {
  var start = 0;
  var end = 0;
  var doc = element.ownerDocument || element.document;
  var win = doc.defaultView || doc.parentWindow;
  var sel;
  if (typeof win.getSelection != "undefined") {
    sel = win.getSelection();
    if (sel.rangeCount > 0) {
      var range = win.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);
      var preCaretRange = range.cloneRange();
      preCaretRange.selectNodeContents(element);
      preCaretRange.setEnd(range.startContainer, range.startOffset);
      start = preCaretRange.toString().length;
      preCaretRange.setEnd(range.endContainer, range.endOffset);
      end = preCaretRange.toString().length;
    }
  } else if ((sel = doc.selection) && sel.type != "Control") {
    var textRange = sel.createRange();
    var preCaretTextRange = doc.body.createTextRange();
    preCaretTextRange.moveToElementText(element);
    preCaretTextRange.setEndPoint("EndToStart", textRange);
    start = preCaretTextRange.text.length;
    preCaretTextRange.setEndPoint("EndToEnd", textRange);
    end = preCaretTextRange.text.length;
  }
  return { start: start, end: end };
}