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setStartBefore method (Range)

Browser support:

9

Sets the start position of the current Range to the start position of the specified node.

Note: The Range object and its setStartBefore method are supported in Internet Explorer from version 9.

The start position of a Range is the first position in the DOM hierarchy that is contained by the Range. If you want the current Range to start after the specified node, use the setStartBefore method. To set the start position to a point that is not the start or end point of any node, use the setStart method.

Similarly, the setEnd, setEndBefore and setEndAfter methods set the end position of a Range.
If you want to align the boundary points of a Range to the start and end points of an element or its contents, use the selectNode or selectNodeContents method.
The boundary points of a Range object can be retrieved with the startContainer, startOffset, endContainer and endOffset properties.

Syntax:

object.setStartBefore (node);

You can find the related objects in the Supported by objects section below.

Parameters:

node

Required. The start position of the current Range will be aligned to the start position of the element referenced by the node parameter.

Return value:

This method has no return value.

The setStartBefore (node) method is equivalent to the setStart (parentNode, index) method, where the parentNode parameter refers to the parent node of the element specified by the node parameter and the value of the index parameter is the position of the element referenced by the node parameter in the childNodes collection of the element referenced by the parentNode parameter.

Example HTML code 1:

This example illustrates the use of the setStartBefore method:

<head>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        function DeleteFirstRow () {
            var table = document.getElementById ("myTable");
            if (table.rows.length > 0) {
                var row = table.rows[0];
                if (document.createRange) {     // all browsers, except IE before version 9
                    var rangeObj = document.createRange ();
                        // aligns the range to the second character
                    rangeObj.setStartBefore (row);
                    rangeObj.setEndAfter (row);
                        // deletes the row
                    rangeObj.deleteContents ();
                }
                else {
                    alert ("Your browser does not support this example!");
                }
            }
        }
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <table id="myTable">
        <tr>
            <td>First row, first cell</td>
            <td>First row, second cell</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Second row, first cell</td>
            <td>Second row, second cell</td>
        </tr>
    </table>
    <br /><br />
    <button onclick="DeleteFirstRow ()">Delete the first row!</button>
</body>