Question

I am using jQuery, and wondering if I should use val() or text() (or another method) to read and update the content of a textarea.

I have tried both and I’ve had issues with both. When I use text() to update textarea, line breaks (\n) don’t work. When I use val() to retrieve the textarea content, the text gets truncated if it’s too long.

Answer 1

The best way to set/get the value of a textarea is the .val(), .value method.

.text() internally uses the .textContent (or .innerText for IE) method to get the contents of a <textarea>. The following test cases illustrate how text() and .val() relate to each other:

var t = '<textarea>';
console.log($(t).text('test').val());             // Prints test
console.log($(t).val('too').text('test').val());  // Prints too
console.log($(t).val('too').text());              // Prints nothing
console.log($(t).text('test').val('too').val());  // Prints too

console.log($(t).text('test').val('too').text()); // Prints test

The value property, used by .val() always shows the current visible value, whereas text()‘s return value can be wrong.