How can I check if a scrollbar is visible?

Question

Is it possible to check the overflow:auto of a div?

For example:

HTML

Answer 1

Ugh everyone's answers on here are incomplete, and lets stop using jquery in SO answers already please. Check jquery's documentation if you want info on jquery.

Here's a generalized pure-javascript function for testing whether or not an element has scrollbars in a complete way:

// dimension - Either 'y' or 'x'
// computedStyles - (Optional) Pass in the domNodes computed styles if you already have it (since I hear its somewhat expensive)
function hasScrollBars(domNode, dimension, computedStyles) {
    dimension = dimension.toUpperCase()
    if(dimension === 'Y') {
        var length = 'Height'
    } else {
        var length = 'Width'
    }

    var scrollLength = 'scroll'+length
    var clientLength = 'client'+length
    var overflowDimension = 'overflow'+dimension

    var hasVScroll = domNode[scrollLength] > domNode[clientLength]


    // Check the overflow and overflowY properties for "auto" and "visible" values
    var cStyle = computedStyles || getComputedStyle(domNode)
    return hasVScroll && (cStyle[overflowDimension] == "visible"
                         || cStyle[overflowDimension] == "auto"
                         )
          || cStyle[overflowDimension] == "scroll"
}