count words in <textarea>

merlin posted this at 14:04 — 1st February 2001.

Joined: Oct 1999

i need a script, that counts the words that a user puts in a < textarea >< /textarea >-form-tag. the number of words should be displayed in another form-field (< input type=text > ) .
i have a solution that counts the chars, but how do i get the words?
huh, the whole thing will be in java-script i suppose? thanks for any help.

jonsteele posted this at 23:57 — 1st February 2001.

They have: 21 posts

Joined: Nov 2000

Couldn't you count the " " (whitespace) then add 1 to get number of words? Just a thought.

Jon.

merlin posted this at 07:57 — 2nd February 2001.

They have: 410 posts

Joined: Oct 1999

well, yes, i could. if i only knew how to do that... i don't know java this good. could anyone help me out?

jonsteele posted this at 21:00 — 2nd February 2001.

They have: 21 posts

Joined: Nov 2000

Try this:

&lt;script&gt;
string = document.form_name.textarea_name.value;

//creates array "words" by splitting string where there is whitespace
words = string.split(" ");

//counts words
document.write(words.length);
&lt;/script&gt;

'
Jon.

Jon Steele -
EverySolution.com

merlin posted this at 14:43 — 5th February 2001.

They have: 410 posts

Joined: Oct 1999

yep, that worked
i had to modify the code a little bit:

&lt;script LANGUAGE="JavaScript"&gt;
function CharLeft(target) {
var maxLength = 81;
string = document.wettbewerb.story.value;
words = string.split(" ");

if (target.value.length > maxLength) {
	target.value = target.value.substring(0,maxLength);
	charleft = 0;
} else {
	charleft = maxLength - words.length;	
}
document.wettbewerb.msg_len.value = charleft;
}
&lt;/script&gt;

and

<textarea name="story" rows=3 cols=45 onChange=CharLeft(this) onFocus=CharLeft(this) onKeyDown=CharLeft(this) onKeyUp=CharLeft(this)></textarea><br>
<input value=80 size=3 name="msg_len" readonly><br>

'
like this, it's writing the number of words left directly into the form-field.
thanks jon for your help!