Hi,

We can restrict the input length by using "maxlength" keyword, as follows:
<input type="text" name="dependant_name" size="50" maxlength="50">

How can I restrict the input length in <TEXTAREA>
As for example if I use
<textarea rows="2" name="project_task" cols="79"></textarea>

suppose I have a column in a table, ProjectTask with size text(100). If I store the value (project_task given in the example above) I will get an error. So I need to restrict the length <= 100 to avoid the error.
Could you please help me?
Thanks in advance

Unfortunately the textarea input control doesn't support that. You could use one of the keypress event handlers in the textarea control to check the length of the text value each time the user presses a key.

<script>
function checkInputLength(objTextArea){
    if(this.value.length>100){
        alert('value is too long.')
        //put more code here, maybe you want to
        //actually chop off the extra characters
    }
}
</script>

<textarea ... onKeyUp="checkInputLength(this);" >

Peter
------------------------------------------------------
Work smarter, not harder.

Agreed. The text area will not limit amount you can enter. Especially not if you cut and paste. Be sure you have server side code that takes the leftmost XX characters, so as not to cause an insert error. For example; myText = Left(64, txtTextArea);

This trims your text at 64 characters, especially if your database is expecing a varchar(64)...

Another thought on this:

Although the standard HTML textbox control doesn't restrict the length you can enter, you could use a client side .NET validator. I forget if there is one ready-made for length. You could easily bake one up with the regular expression validator to check for length on-the-fly and have it pop a message up next to the text area when you reach the limit.

Peter
------------------------------------------------------
Work smarter, not harder.

Thanks Peter and us7892 for your valued suggestion.

Peter's suggestion to use a javascript function and a on-the-fly check of the length is wonderful.

us7892's suggestion to cut the length is useful too. It will protect the program to crash from "data too long" problem...speacially where javascript is not supported.

Take care
:)

This other javascript code works pretty well.
  <SCRIPT language=JavaScript>
<!--
    n = (document.layers) ? 1 : 0;
    ie = (document.all) ? 1 : 0;
    ver4 = (n || ie) ? 1 : 0;
    var n6 = ((document.getElementById)&&(!ie)) ? 1 : 0;
    var maxLen = 255;
    var enable;

    function Enablecounter() {
            enable = setInterval("counter()",500);
        }

    function counter()
        {
        var msLen, clLen,niLen, totLen, tmp;
        var done = 0;
        msLen = document.details.comments.value.length;
        //clLen = document.details.callback.value.length;
        //niLen = document.details.nick.value.length;
        //status=document.details.comments.value.length;
        //totLen = msLen + clLen + niLen;
        totLen = msLen;

        tmp = maxLen - totLen;
        if (document.details.charcount.value != tmp) {
            if (tmp > 0) {
            // update counter
            document.details.charcount.value = tmp;
            } else {
                if (tmp == 0) {
                    // alert once and update counter to be 0
                    alert("Your message is too long");
                    document.details.charcount.value = 0;
                    clearTimeout(enable);
                    document.details.comments.value = document.details.comments.value.substring(0,maxLen );
                } else {
                    document.details.charcount.value = 0;
                    document.details.comments.value = document.details.comments.value.substring(0,maxLen )
                }
            }

        }

    }

    function check()
    {
        if (document.details.charcount.value == "0")
            {
            alert("Your message is too long");
            return false;
            }
        if (document.details.comments.value=="" || document.details.comments.value==" ")
            {
            alert("Please type in your message");
            return false;
            }

    }




// End -->

</SCRIPT>

The value in red is the maximum amount of characters that you want to be typed in

You will need to give yur text area these properties for the javascript to work.

<textarea onBlur=Enablecounter() onFocus=Enablecounter() name=comments rows=7 wrap=virtual cols=50 onChange=Enablecounter()>