Cursor position in a textarea (character index, not x/y coordinates)

Question

How can I get the caret's position in a textarea using jQuery? I'm looking for the cursor's offset from the start of the text, not for the (x, y) position.

Answer 1

Modified BojanG's solution to work with jQuery. Tested in Chrome, FF, and IE.

(function ($, undefined) {     $.fn.getCursorPosition = function() {         var el = $(this).get(0);         var pos = 0;         if('selectionStart' in el) {             pos = el.selectionStart;         } else if('selection' in document) {             el.focus();             var Sel = document.selection.createRange();             var SelLength = document.selection.createRange().text.length;             Sel.moveStart('character', -el.value.length);             pos = Sel.text.length - SelLength;         }         return pos;     } })(jQuery); 

Basically, to use it on a text box, do the following:

$("#myTextBoxSelector").getCursorPosition();