JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition

Name

Textarea — a multiline text input area

Availability

JavaScript 1.0; enhanced in JavaScript 1.1

Inherits from/Overrides

Inherits from Input, HTMLElement

Synopsis

                  form.name
                  form.elements[i]

Properties

Textarea inherits the properties of Input and HTMLElement and defines or overrides the following:

value

A read/write string property. The initial value of this property is the same as the defaultValue property: the plain text (i.e., without any HTML tags) that appears between the <textarea> and </textarea> tags. When the user types characters into the Textarea object, the value property is updated to match the user’s input. If you set the value property explicitly, the string you specify is displayed in the Textarea object. This value property contains the string that is sent to the server when the form is submitted.

Methods

Textarea inherits the methods of Input and HTMLElement.

Event Handlers

Textarea inherits the event handlers of Input and HTMLElement and defines or overrides the following:

onchange

Invoked when the user changes the value in the Textarea element and moves the keyboard focus elsewhere. This event handler is not invoked for every keystroke in the Textarea element, but only when the user completes an edit.

HTML Syntax

A Textarea element is created with standard HTML <textarea> and </textarea> tags:

<form>
    ...
  <textarea
    [ name="name" ]         // A name that can be used to refer to this element
    [ rows="integer" ]      // How many lines tall the element is
    [ cols="integer" ] // ...