Question

What’s causing this error? Should I pass element.value into the function? I know how to set this up in a JSP, but not in JavaScript. I’m having trouble passing values into another function.

function editCommentToggle( id )
{
    theRow = document.getElementById("id"+id);
    //user = theRow.cells[0].innerHTML;
    //date = theRow.cells[1].innerHTML;
    com = theRow.cells[2].innerHTML;


    idx = 2;
    maxlength = 250;
    // Comment field

    cell = theRow.cells[idx];
    while( cell.childNodes.length > 0 )
        cell.removeChild(cell.childNodes[0]);
    element = document.createElement("textarea");
    element.id="comments-"+id;
    element.rows="3";
    element.value = com;
    element.style.width = "400px";
    element.maxLength = "250";
    element.onfocus = element.onkeydown = element.onkeyup = function(){
            return characterCounterEdit(undefined, maxlength, element);
    }; 
    cell.appendChild(element);



function characterCounterEdit(id, maxLen, inputElement)
{
    spanId = document.getElementById(id);

    if (spanId)
    {
        // Update the counter the user sees.
        var whatIsLeft = maxLen - inputElement.value.length;

        if ( whatIsLeft < 0 ) whatIsLeft = 0;
        spanId.innerText = whatIsLeft;
    }

    // Restrict user from entering more than the maxlen.
 **ERROR HERE-->>>**   if ( inputElement.value.length > maxLen )
    {
        inputElement.value = inputElement.value.substring( 0, maxLen );
    }
}

Answer 1

try changing this …

element.onfocus = element.onkeydown = element.onkeyup = function(){return characterCounterEdit(undefined, maxlength, element);};

to this …

element.onfocus = element.onkeydown = element.onkeyup = function(){return characterCounterEdit(undefined, maxlength, this);};
                                                                                                                     ^^^^

or you could also try using the event target/sourceElement, described here – http://www.quirksmode.org/js/events_properties.html – in your characterCounterEdit function.