Question

I’m trying to write a function that return the value of non-whitespace characters that are inside a textarea. I’m supposed to use replace and the regex given to me to separate whitespace and actual characters but I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to get the count. Could someone explain it to me please?

function countText()
{
    var commentText;
    var commentBox = document.getElementById('comment');  //comment is my textArea ID
    var commentregx = "/\s/g";                            // whitespace regex

    commentText = commentBox.value.replace(commentregx, ""); // commentText is supposed to hold the number of non-whitespace values.
}

If needed I can throw this into a jsfiddle with my other functions.

Answer 1

The replace is returning your string without whitespace, so just grab its length:

commentText = commentBox.value.replace(commentregx, "").length;