Set value of textarea in jQuery

Question

I am attempting to set a value in a textarea field using jquery with the following code:

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").attr("value", result.exampleMessage);

The issue is, once this code executes, it is not altering the text in the textarea?

However when performing an alert($("textarea#ExampleMessage").attr("value")) the newly set value is returned?

Answer 1

Have you tried val?

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").val(result.exampleMessage);

Answer 2

Textarea has no value attribute, its value comes between tags, i.e: <textarea>my text</textarea>, it is not like the input field (<input value="my text" />). That's why attr doesn't work :)

Answer 3

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").val() in jquery just a magic.

You should notice that textarea tag using inner html to display and not in value attribute just like input tag.

<textarea>blah blah</textarea>
<input type="text" value="blah blah"/>

You should use

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").html(result.exampleMessage)

or

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").text(result.exampleMessage)

depend on if you want to display it as html tags or plain text.

Answer 4

Oohh come on boys! it works just with

$('#your_textarea_id').val('some_value');

Answer 5

I think this should work :

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").val(result.exampleMessage);

Answer 6

On android .val and .html didn't work.

$('#id').text("some value")

did the job.

Answer 7

i had the same question so i decided to try it in the current browsers (we're one and a half year later in time after this question), and this (.val) works

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").val(result.exampleMessage); 

for

• IE8
• FF 3.6
• FF4
• Opera 11
• Chrome 10

Answer 8

I had same issue and this solution didn't work but what worked was to use html

$('#your_textarea_id').html('some_value');

Answer 9

textarea doesn't store values as

<textarea value="someString">

instead, it stores values in this format:

<textarea>someString</textarea>

So attr("value","someString") gets you this result:

<textarea value="someString">someOLDString</textarea>.

try $("#textareaid").val() or $("#textareaid").innerHTML instead.

Answer 10

There the problem : I need to generate html code from the contain of a given div. Then, I have to put this raw html code in a textarea. When I use the function $(textarea).val() like this :

$(textarea).val("some html like < input type='text' value='' style="background: url('http://www.w.com/bg.gif') repeat-x center;" /> bla bla");

or

$('#idTxtArGenHtml').val( $('idDivMain').html() );

I had problem with some special character ( & ' " ) when they are between quot. But when I use the function : $(textarea).html() the text is ok.

There an example form :

<FORM id="idFormContact" name="nFormContact" action="send.php" method="post"  >
    <FIELDSET id="idFieldContact" class="CMainFieldset">
        <LEGEND>Test your newsletter&raquo; </LEGEND> 
        <p>Send to &agrave; : <input id='idInpMailList' type='text' value='youremail@gmail.com' /></p>
        <FIELDSET  class="CChildFieldset">
            <LEGEND>Subject</LEGEND>
            <LABEL for="idNomClient" class="CInfoLabel">Enter the subject: *&nbsp</LABEL><BR/>
          <INPUT value="" name="nSubject" type="text" id="idSubject" class="CFormInput" alt="Enter the Subject" ><BR/>
    </FIELDSET>
    <FIELDSET  class="CChildFieldset">
        <INPUT id="idBtnGen" type="button" value="Generate" onclick="onGenHtml();"/>&nbsp;&nbsp;
          <INPUT id="idBtnSend" type="button" value="Send" onclick="onSend();"/><BR/><BR/>
            <LEGEND>Message</LEGEND>
                <LABEL for="idTxtArGenHtml" class="CInfoLabel">Html code : *&nbsp</LABEL><BR/>
                <span><TEXTAREA  name="nTxtArGenHtml" id="idTxtArGenHtml" width='100%' cols="69" rows="300" alt="enter your message" ></TEXTAREA></span>
        </FIELDSET>
    </FIELDSET>
</FORM>

And javascript/jquery code that don't work to fill the textarea is :

function onGenHtml(){
  $('#idTxtArGenHtml').html( $("#idDivMain").html()  );
}

Finaly the solution :

function onGenHtml(){
  $('#idTxtArGenHtml').html( $("#idDivMain").html() );
  $('#idTxtArGenHtml').parent().replaceWith( '<span>'+$('#idTxtArGenHtml').parent().html()+'</span>');
}

The trick is wrap your textarea with a span tag to help with the replaceWith function. I'm not sure if it's very clean, but it's work perfect too add raw html code in a textarea.

Answer 11

Text Area doesnot have value. jQuery .html() works in this case

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").html(result.exampleMessage);

Answer 12

I think there is missing one important aspect:

$('#some-text-area').val('test');

works only when there is an ID selector (#)

for class selector there is an option to use native value like:

$('.some-text-area')[0].value = 'test';

Answer 13

To set textarea value of encoded HTML (to show as HTML) you should use .html( the_var ) but as mentioned if you try and set it again it may (and probably) will not work.

You can fix this by emptying the textarea .empty() and then setting it again with .html( the_var )

Here's a working JSFiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/w7b1thgw/2/

jQuery(function($){
    
    $('.load_html').click(function(){
        var my_var = $(this).data('my_html');
        $('#dynamic_html').html( my_var ); 
    });
    
    $('#clear_html').click(function(){
        $('#dynamic_html').empty(); 
    });
    
});

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<textarea id="dynamic_html"></textarea>
<a id="google_html" class="load_html" href="#" data-my_html="&lt;a href=&quot;google.com&quot;&gt;google.com&lt;/a&gt;">Google HTML</a>
<a id="yahoo_html" class="load_html" href="#" data-my_html="&lt;a href=&quot;yahoo.com&quot;&gt;yahoo.com&lt;/a&gt;">Yahoo HTML</a>
<a id="clear_html" href="#">Clear HTML</a>

Answer 14

Adding to some great answers above, in a case where you using multi-forms and the element NAME is what you want to target.

$('textarea[name=ExampleMessageElName]').val('Some Message here');

Answer 15

It works for me.... I have built a face book wall...

Here is the basis of my code:

// SETS MY TEXT AREA TO EMPTY (NO VALUE)
$('textarea#message_wall').val('');

Answer 16

I tried with .val() .text() .html() and had some bugs using jQuery to read or set value of a textarea... i endup using native js

$('#message').blur(function() {    
    if (this.value == '') { this.value = msg_greeting; }
});

Answer 17

Just use textarea Id by its type like it:

$("textarea#samplID").val()

Answer 18

I've used $(textarea).val/html/text(any_str_var) all worked for me. If you want to be sure that your variable as a string is added to the textarea, you can always concat like so:

$(textarea).val(unknown_var + '')

.val() method is definitely used on textarea - see: https://api.jquery.com/val/

.html() can be used to get or set the contents of any element - see: https://api.jquery.com/html/#html2

.text() is the same as .html except this can be used to set XML content: see - https://api.jquery.com/text/#text-text

You can also read more about how each act upon special characters with each of those links.

Answer 19

In my condition i had this input in iframe, any of the above resolve my problem but this :

I just solve it like in this way :

$('#myId')[0].value="MY VALUE";

My input field :

<textarea name="cmyInput" rows="2" cols="20" id="myId" class="nd" ignoreautotab="1"></textarea>

Answer 20

You can even use the below snippet.

$("textarea#ExampleMessage").append(result.exampleMessage);

Answer 21

We can either use .val() or .text() methods to set values. we need to put value inside val() like val("hello").

  $(document).ready(function () {
    $("#submitbtn").click(function () {
      var inputVal = $("#inputText").val();
      $("#txtMessage").val(inputVal);
    });
  });

Check example here: http://www.codegateway.com/2012/03/set-value-to-textarea-jquery.html

Answer 22

When I had JQuery v1.4.4 in the page, neither of these worked. When injecting JQuery v1.7.1 into my page, it worked finally. So in my case, it was my JQuery version that was causing the issue.

id ==> textareaid

======================

var script1 = document.createElement("script");
script1.src = "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js";
document.body.appendChild(script1);

var script2 = document.createElement("script"); 
script2.type = "text/javascript"; 
script2.innerHTML = "var $jq171 = $.noConflict();"; 
document.body.appendChild(script2);

$jq171('#textareaid').val('xxx');

Answer 23

The accepted answer works for me, but only after I realized I had to execute my code after the page was finished loading. In this situation inline script didn't work, I guess because #my_form wasn't done loading yet.

$(document).ready(function() {
  $("#my_form textarea").val('');
});

Answer 24

Using $("textarea#ExampleMessage").html('whatever you want to put here'); can be a good way, because .val() can have problems when you are using data from database.

For example:

A database field named as description has the following value asjkdfklasdjf sjklñadf. In this case using .val() to assign value to textarea can be a tedious job.

Answer 25

Just use this code and you will always have the value:

var t = $(this); var v = t.val() || t.html() || t.text();

So it will check val() and set its value. If val() gets an empty string, NULL, NaN o.s. it will check for html() and then for text()...

Answer 26

I've tried to set value / text / html using JQuery but was not successful. So I tried the following.

In this case I was injecting new textarea element to a after DOM created.

 var valueToDisplay= 'Your text here even with line breaks';
 var textBox = '<textarea class="form-control" >'+ valueToDisplay +'</textarea>';
 $(td).html(textBox);

Answer 27

To edit text inside of textarea through jQuery use $(id).html e.g.

<textarea id="descricao2" name="descricao2" class="form" style="width:600px;height: 130px;"></textarea>

$("#descricao2").html("hello");

Answer 28

This works:

var t = $('#taCommentSalesAdministration');
t.val('Hi');

Remember, the tricky part here is making sure you use the correct ID. And before you use the ID make sure you put # before it.