jQuery contents character count (all children)

charCount.js

$.fn.extend({
    allText: function(){
        var allTextResult;
        this.each(function(){
            result = $(this).find(":not(iframe)").addBack().contents().filter(function() {
                return this.nodeType == 3;
            });
            if (typeof allTextResult === 'undefined' || allTextResult === null) {
                allTextResult = result;
            } else {
                allTextResult.merge(result);
            }
        });
        return allTextResult;
    },
    charCount: function (){
        var total = 0;
        this.each(function(){
            $(this).allText().each(function(){
                total += $(this).text().trim().length
            });
        });
        return total;
    }
});

charCountExample.js

$('div').charCount();
// total count of characters of all (white-space trimmed) text nodes of all matches

$('div').allText();
// collection of all text nodes of all children of all matches

/******* DANGER !!! **********

This method can be extreemly resource intensive, and double-counts nodes, if you are not careful with your selector!!

<div>
  abc
  <div>
  ef
    <div> G </div>
  </div>
</div>

in the 'div' selector example above, the resulting count would be:
6 // for the first div
3 // for the second
1 // for the third
10 // total