How to change the Content of a <textarea> with Javascript

Question

How would I change the content of a <textarea> element with JavaScript?

I want to make it empty.

Answer 1

If its Jquery ..

$("#myText").val('');

or

document.getElementById('myText').value = '';

http://www.hscripts.com/tutorials/javascript/dom/textarea-events.php

Answer 2

Like this:

document.getElementById('myTextarea').value = '';

or like this in jQuery:

$('#myTextarea').val('');

Where you have

<textarea id="myTextarea" name="something">This text gets removed</textarea>

For all the downvoters and non-believers:

• Here's the MSDN reference

  value Property: Retrieves or sets the text in the entry field of the textArea element.

• Here's the MDC reference

  value | contained text

Answer 3

Use innerHTML property.

textarea = document.getElementById('myArea');
textarea.innerHTML = "";

EDIT:

I just checked that out and both the .innerHTML and the .value works in FF 2.0. But i think use of the .innerHTML (or an .innerTEXT eventually) makes much more sense according to there is no value property for textarea tag in HTML.

Answer 4

If you can use jQuery, and I highly recommend you do, you would simply do

$('#myTextArea').val('');

Otherwise, it is browser dependent. Assuming you have

var myTextArea = document.getElementById('myTextArea');

In most browsers you do

myTextArea.innerHTML = '';

But in Firefox, you do

myTextArea.innerText = '';

Figuring out what browser the user is using is left as an exercise for the reader. Unless you use jQuery, of course ;)

Edit: I take that back. Looks like support for .innerHTML on textarea's has improved. I tested in Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, all of them cleared the textarea correctly.

Edit 2: And I just checked, if you use .val('') in jQuery, it just sets the .value property for textarea's. So .value should be fine.

Answer 5

Although many correct answers have already been given, the classical (read non-DOM) approach would be like this:

document.forms['yourform']['yourtextarea'].value = 'yourvalue';

where in the HTML your textarea is nested somewhere in a form like this:

<form name="yourform">
    <textarea name="yourtextarea" rows="10" cols="60"></textarea>
</form>

And as it happens, that would work with Netscape Navigator 4 and Internet Explorer 3 too. And, not unimportant, Internet Explorer on mobile devices.