What is offsetHeight, clientHeight, scrollHeight?

Question

Thought of explaining what is the difference between offsetHeight, clientHeight and scrollHeight or offsetWidth, clientWidth and scrollWidth?

One must know this difference before working on the client side. Otherwise half of their life will be spent in fixing the UI.

Fiddle, or inline below:

function whatis(propType) {
  var mainDiv = document.getElementById("MainDIV");
  if (window.sampleDiv == null) {
    var div = document.createElement("div");
    window.sampleDiv = div;
  }
  div = window.sampleDiv;
  var propTypeWidth = propType.toLowerCase() + "Width";
  var propTypeHeight = propType + "Height";

  var computedStyle = window.getComputedStyle(mainDiv, null);
  var borderLeftWidth = computedStyle.getPropertyValue("border-left-width");
  var borderTopWidth = computedStyle.getPropertyValue("border-top-width");

  div.style.position = "absolute";
  div.style.left = mainDiv.offsetLeft + Math.round(parseFloat((propType == "client") ? borderLeftWidth : 0)) + "px";
  div.style.top = mainDiv.offsetTop + Math.round(parseFloat((propType == "client") ? borderTopWidth : 0)) + "px";
  div.style.height = mainDiv[propTypeHeight] + "px";
  div.style.lineHeight = mainDiv[propTypeHeight] + "px";
  div.style.width = mainDiv[propTypeWidth] + "px";
  div.style.textAlign = "center";
  div.innerHTML = propTypeWidth + " X " + propTypeHeight + "( " +
    mainDiv[propTypeWidth] + " x " + mainDiv[propTypeHeight] + " )";



  div.style.background = "rgba(0,0,255,0.5)";
  document.body.appendChild(div);

}
document.getElementById("offset").onclick = function() {
  whatis('offset');
}
document.getElementById("client").onclick = function() {
  whatis('client');
}
document.getElementById("scroll").onclick = function() {
  whatis('scroll');
}

#MainDIV {
  border: 5px solid red;
}

<button id="offset">offsetHeight & offsetWidth</button>
<button id="client">clientHeight & clientWidth</button>
<button id="scroll">scrollHeight & scrollWidth</button>

<div id="MainDIV" style="margin:auto; height:200px; width:400px; overflow:auto;">
  <div style="height:400px; width:500px; overflow:hidden;">

  </div>
</div>

Answer 1

To know the difference you have to understand the box model, but basically:

clientHeight:

returns the inner height of an element in pixels, including padding but not the horizontal scrollbar height, border, or margin

offsetHeight:

is a measurement which includes the element borders, the element vertical padding, the element horizontal scrollbar (if present, if rendered) and the element CSS height.

scrollHeight:

is a measurement of the height of an element's content including content not visible on the screen due to overflow

---

I will make it easier:

Consider:

<element>                                     
    <!-- *content*: child nodes: -->        | content
    A child node as text node               | of
    <div id="another_child_node"></div>     | the
    ... and I am the 4th child node         | element
</element>                                    

scrollHeight: ENTIRE content & padding (visible or not)
_{Height of all content + paddings, despite of height of the element.}

clientHeight: VISIBLE content & padding
_{Only visible height: content portion limited by explicitly defined height of the element.}

offsetHeight: VISIBLE content & padding + border + scrollbar
_{Height occupied by the element on document.}