Limiting TEXTAREA size

jekylljax

Hi,

I have a form that a user fills out on my website. This form contains a textarea. When the user submits the form, the contents of the textarea are placed into the database.

My question is: How can I limit the size of what goes into this textarea? I want to makes sure that someone doesn't go malicious on me and copy and paste the Entire Works of Shakespeare into my poor little form!!

Is there any way I can limit the size of what goes into the textarea... and if the size is too big display an error message? Thanks!

thinsoapy

I don't think there is an HTML maxlength attibute for textarea like there is for an input type=text box, so you'll have to use an if statement in your PHP.

you just need to check the string length (using strlen) of the variable before running the query. where 500 is the max number of chars:

if (strlen ($text_area_var > 500))
{
echo "message too long";
} else {
...run the query...
}

i think my syntax is correct for checking the > greater than, but i might be a bit off

Dave

Anon

Nothing faster and more reliable than this,

got from working version of sms gateway

.
.
</head>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function checkArea() {
var maxsize=160;
sms.style.visibility='visible';
if (document.comment.tArea.value.length>maxsize) {
document.comment.tArea.value=document.comment.tArea.value.substring(0,maxsize);
sms.style.visibility='hidden';
}
window.self.status=document.comment.tArea.value.length;
}
</script>

<style type="text/css"> @import "style/global.css"; </style>
.
.
<body>
.
.
<form name="comment" method="POST" action="/p?f=send">
<textarea name="tArea" language=javascript onChange="return checkArea()" onKeyUp="return checkArea()" wrap=physical cols=50 rows=4></textarea>
<div id="sms" class="index_sms"><input type=submit name=send value=submit></div>
</form>

Anon

That works, but I'd suggest adding a check to whatever script or executable handles the form input anyway - the length limiter is easily defeated simply by turning Javascript parsing off in one's browser.

David Prokopetz.
dave@penguinking.com