HTMLInputElement: select event

Baseline

Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

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The select event fires when some text has been selected.

Syntax

Use the event name in addEventListener():

addEventListener("select", (event) => { })

Alternatively, assign to the event handler property of the interface:

onselect = (event) => { }

Event type

A generic Event.

Examples

Selection logger

html

<input value="Try selecting some text in this element." />
<p id="log"></p>

function logSelection(event) {
  const log = document.getElementById("log");
  const selection = event.target.value.substring(
    event.target.selectionStart,
    event.target.selectionEnd,
  );
  log.textContent = `You selected: ${selection}`;
}

const input = document.querySelector("input");
input.addEventListener("select", logSelection);

Using the `onselect` event handler property

You can also set up the event handler using the onselect property (but note that this replaces other event listeners added using onselect, if any):