Count bytes in textarea using javascript

Question

I need to count how long in bytes a textarea is when UTF8 encoded using javascript. Any idea how I would do this?

thanks!

Answer 1

encodeURIComponent(text).replace(/%[A-F\d]{2}/g, 'U').length

Answer 2

I have been asking myself the same thing. This is the best answer I have stumble upon:

http://www.inter-locale.com/demos/countBytes.html

Here is the code snippet:

<script type="text/javascript">
 function checkLength() {
    var countMe = document.getElementById("someText").value
    var escapedStr = encodeURI(countMe)
    if (escapedStr.indexOf("%") != -1) {
        var count = escapedStr.split("%").length - 1
        if (count == 0) count++  //perverse case; can't happen with real UTF-8
        var tmp = escapedStr.length - (count * 3)
        count = count + tmp
    } else {
        count = escapedStr.length
    }
    alert(escapedStr + ": size is " + count)
 }

but the link contains a live example of it to play with. "encodeURI(STRING)" is the building block here, but also look at encodeURIComponent(STRING) (as already point out on the previous answer) to see which one fits your needs.

Regards