What is the difference between onBlur and onChange atrribute in HTML?

Question

When is one called versus the other? Is there a situation were onChange would be called but onBlur would not be called?

Answer 1

onBlur is when you have moved away from an object without necessarily changing it.

onChange is only called after you have moved away from an object that you have changed the value of.

You might want to take a look at quirksmode's intro to events. This is a great place to get info on what's going on in your browser when you interact with it. His book is good too.

Answer 2

onChange is when something within a field changes eg, you write something in a text input.

onBlur is when you take focus away from a field eg, you were writing in a text input and you have clicked off it.

So really they are almost the same thing but for onChange to behave the way onBlur does something in that input needs to change.

Answer 3

onBlur is when your focus is no longer on the field in question.

The onblur property returns the onBlur event handler code, if any, that exists on the current element.

onChange is when the value of the field changes.

Answer 4

An example to make things concrete. If you have a selection thus:

<select onchange="" onblur="">
  <option>....
</select>

the onblur() is called when you navigate away. The onchange() is called when you select a different option from the selection - i.e. you change what it's currently selected as.

Answer 5

OnBlur = OnFocus

Answer 6

onblur fires when a field loses focus, while onchange fires when that field's value changes. These events will not always occur in the same order, however.

In Firefox, tabbing out of a changed field will fire onchange then onblur, and it will normally do the same in IE. However, if you press the enter key instead of tab, in Firefox it will fire onblur then onchange, while IE will usually fire in the original order. However, I've seen cases where IE will also fire blur first, so be careful. You can't assume that either the onblur or the onchange will happen before the other one.