Limit the character length of a <textarea> field? [resolved]

**Jez1** · May 19th, 2004, 06:26 AM

How can I limit the length, in characters, of a <textarea> field. I have tried the MAXLENGTH= property, but it seems to have no effect.

Thanks

Jez

**mendhak** · May 19th, 2004, 07:24 AM

In the onKeyDown event, call a function that checks the length of the value of the textarea.

Code:

//let's suppose, maxlimit = 100

if (textareaname.value.length > maxlimit) 

textareaname.value = textareaname.value.substring(0, maxlimit);

HTH

**Acidic** · May 19th, 2004, 07:33 AM

Yeah, I was trying this:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function doIt(_obj) {
/*
Couldnd't get this working:
if (the_key_pressed_in_ascii == 8) //Backspace
	{
	return true
	}
*/
if (_obj.value.length > 15)
	{
	return false
	}
}
</script>
</head>

<body>
<textarea onKeyPress="return doIt(this)"></textarea>
</body>
</html>

but your code is robably better.

**Jez1** · May 19th, 2004, 07:41 AM

I'm guessing that's Javascript.
Could you provide a simple explaination of how to put that code into a function and how to call it on the onKeyDown event please?

Javascript is confusing to me

**Acidic** · May 19th, 2004, 08:55 AM

using menhaks code:

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
function doIt(_obj) {
//let's suppose, maxlimit = 100
maxlimit = 100
if (_obj.value.length > maxlimit) 
_obj.value = _obj.value.substring(0, maxlimit);
}
</script>
<textarea onKeyDown="return doIt(this)"></textarea>

**Jez1** · May 19th, 2004, 09:48 AM

Thanks, it works great.

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