Question

I’m trying to get all the DOM nodes that are within a range object, what’s the best way to do this?

var selection = window.getSelection(); //what the user has selected var range = selection.getRangeAt(0); //the first range of the selection var startNode = range.startContainer; var endNode = range.endContainer; var allNodes = /*insert magic*/; 

I’ve been been thinking of a way for the last few hours and came up with this:

var getNextNode = function(node, skipChildren){     //if there are child nodes and we didn't come from a child node     if (node.firstChild && !skipChildren) {         return node.firstChild;     }     if (!node.parentNode){         return null;     }     return node.nextSibling          || getNextNode(node.parentNode, true); };  var getNodesInRange = function(range){     var startNode = range.startContainer.childNodes[range.startOffset]             || range.startContainer;//it's a text node     var endNode = range.endContainer.childNodes[range.endOffset]             || range.endContainer;      if (startNode == endNode && startNode.childNodes.length === 0) {         return [startNode];     };      var nodes = [];     do {         nodes.push(startNode);     }     while ((startNode = getNextNode(startNode))              && (startNode != endNode));     return nodes; }; 

However when the end node is the parent of the start node it returns everything on the page. I’m sure I’m overlooking something obvious? Or maybe going about it in totally the wrong way.

MDC/DOM/range

Answer 1

The getNextNode will skip your desired endNode recursively if its a parent node.

Perform the conditional break check inside of the getNextNode instead:

var getNextNode = function(node, skipChildren, endNode){   //if there are child nodes and we didn't come from a child node   if (endNode == node) {     return null;   }   if (node.firstChild && !skipChildren) {     return node.firstChild;   }   if (!node.parentNode){     return null;   }   return node.nextSibling           || getNextNode(node.parentNode, true, endNode);  }; 

and in while statement:

while (startNode = getNextNode(startNode, false , endNode));