Javascript Code Function to Get/Replace the Selected Text

Javascript Code Function to Get the Selected Text, the Start and End Position of the Selected Text and Optionally Replace the Selected Text. This will Work to Get the Selected Text in a Textarea, Div, Input and ANY Text Selected in an HTML Document

The Get Selected Text function below returns a 3 part array:

1. The selected text.
2. The start position of the selected text.
3. The end position of the selected text.

This function also allows you to replace the selected text. Here is an example of how to do that:

// assuming a textarea with the id of [tahtmltext] const tahtmltext = document.querySelector('#tahtmltext'); /* [arr3] will contain 3 part array [0]the selected text [1]start position of sel text [2]end position of sel text */ let arr3 = getSelectedText(tahtmltext); /* arr3[0] now contains the selected text second call to funtion replaces the selected text with the original selected text with the selected text surrounded by html span tags */ getSelectedText(tahtmltext, '<span>' + arr3[0] + '</span>'); /* ------------------------------------------------------ GET THE SELECTED TEXT AND OPTIONALLY REPLACE SELECTED TEXT RETURNS 3 PART ARRAY: [0] the selected text [1] the select text start position [2] the selected text end postition ------------------------------------------------------- */ function getSelectedText(textElem, replaceSelTextWith = '') { let seltext = ''; if(window.getSelection) { seltext = window.getSelection(); }else if(document.getSelection) { seltext = document.getSelection(); }else if(document.selection) { seltext = document.selection.createRange().text; }else{ return [false, -1, -1]; } let start = textElem.selectionStart; let end = textElem.selectionEnd; if(replaceSelTextWith){ let len = textElem.value.length; let sel = textElem.value.substring(start, end); let replace = replaceSelTextWith; textElem.value = textElem.value.substring(0, start) + replace + textElem.value.substring(end,len); } return [seltext, start, end] }