Question

I am trying to solve copy pasting a column with values from excel into a textarea in my web app.

The user will simply select row values in a column, e.g. the excel table looks like (the user will not select the header)

 -----
|Code |
 -----
|  1  |
 -----
|  2  |
 -----
|  3  |
 -----
|  4  |
 -----
|  5  |
 -----

When I paste this into a text area, it pastes in with the spaces, e.g.

 --------------------------------------------
|1                                           |
|2                                           |
|3                                           |
|4                                           |
|5                                           |
|                                            |
 --------------------------------------------

But when I post this text area to the controller, receiving it like so:

public ActionResult Search(string searchTerms)
{
    //`searchTerms` = "12345"
    ...omitted for brevity...
}

This is a problem, as the codes represent separate object.

What would be the easiest way I could modify this so I can receive some sort of separator? Keeping in mind the user will just want to hit ctrl+v and have the entire list entered. Simple modifications to the excel spreadsheet to have the list separated on copy or alternative excel type solution would also be acceptable.

Answer 1

You could insert the separators when the text is pasted into the textarea. With something like the following

$("textarea").change(function() {
    $(this).val($(this).val().split('\n').join(','));
});

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/ADwYg/