How to get full width of an element inside an "overflow-x: auto;" area?

March 29, 2022

I coded this:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $("button").click(function() {
    alert("Width of #text: " + $("#text").width());
  });
});

* {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

#container {
  width: 300px;
  height: 150px;
  background-color: grey;
  position: relative;
}

#scroll-area {
  overflow-x: auto;
  height: 100%;
}

#text {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js"></script>

<div id="container">
  <div id="scroll-area">
    <div id="text">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua.</div>
  </div>
</div>

<button>Get width of #text</button>

I would like to calculate the width of the #text element that is inside the #container element. Currently, it shows me 300px as result. But that is the width of the container, and not of the text element.

>Solution :

Try with scrollWidth feature

$(document).ready(function() {
  $("button").click(function() {
    alert("Width of #text: " + $("#scroll-area")[0].scrollWidth);
  });
});

* {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

#container {
  width: 300px;
  height: 150px;
  background-color: grey;
  position: relative;
}

#scroll-area {
  overflow-x: auto;
  height: 100%;
}

#text {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js"></script>

<div id="container">
  <div id="scroll-area">
    <div id="text">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua.</div>
  </div>
</div>

<button>Get width of #text</button>