[whatwg] <textarea> maxlength vs. wrap (Web Forms 2.0 2004-06-27)

Wrigley, Ave Ave.Wrigley at itn.co.uk
Thu Aug 12 06:38:47 PDT 2004


 > When a <textarea> has wrap="hard", does the maxlength refer 
> to the number of characters entered by the user (and seen by
> the DOM) or the 
> number of characters submitted by the form, i.e. including the extra 
> line breaks?
> 
> The definition of maxlength says it is "the maximum length of
> the input, in terms of numbers of characters". I can see why, from an 
> implementation point of view, you would want to base it on 
> the number of characters seen by the DOM. However, this might be 
> counter-intuitive for developers, who might expect it to limit the
number of characters 
> submitted (even if the server should handle this situation).
> 
> Could the definition of wrap="hard" take this into account?

This is a very good point. My feeling is that the maxlength should apply
to the number of characters that are submitted, although I am surprised
that this is different from the number seen by the DOM. I guess the
correct implementation would be for the DOM value to include the line
breaks.

Ave.




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