Php – Why is textarea filled with thesterious white spaces

formshtmlPHPtextarea

I have a simple text area in a form like this:

<textarea style="width:350px; height:80px;" cols="42" rows="5" name="sitelink">
    <?php if($siteLink_val) echo $siteLink_val; ?> 
</textarea>

I keep getting extra white space in this textarea. When I tab into it my cursor is like in the middle of the textarea and not in the beginning? What is the explanation?

Best Answer

Look closely at your code. In it, there are already three line breaks, and a ton of white space before </textarea>. Remove those first so that there are no line breaks in between the tags any more. It might already do the trick.

A COMPLETE YET SIMPLE SOLUTION

Updated 2020-05-14 (Improved browser support for mobiles and tablets)

The following code will work:

On key input.
With pasted text (right click & ctrl+v).
With cut text (right click & ctrl+x).
With pre-loaded text.
With all textarea's (multiline textbox's) site wide.
With Firefox (v31-67 tested).
With Chrome (v37-74 tested).
With IE (v9-v11 tested).
With Edge (v14-v18 tested).
With IOS Safari.
With Android Browser.
With JavaScript strict mode.
Is w3c validated.
And is streamlined and efficient.

OPTION 1 (With jQuery)

This option requires jQuery and has been tested and is working with 1.7.2 - 3.6

Simple (Add this jquery code to your master script file and forget about it.)

$("textarea").each(function () {
  this.setAttribute("style", "height:" + (this.scrollHeight) + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
}).on("input", function () {
  this.style.height = "auto";
  this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight) + "px";
});

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here...">PRELOADED TEXT.
This javascript should now add better support for IOS browsers and Android browsers.</textarea>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here..."></textarea>

Test on jsfiddle

OPTION 2 (Pure JavaScript)

Simple (Add this JavaScript to your master script file and forget about it.)

const tx = document.getElementsByTagName("textarea");
for (let i = 0; i < tx.length; i++) {
  tx[i].setAttribute("style", "height:" + (tx[i].scrollHeight) + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
  tx[i].addEventListener("input", OnInput, false);
}

function OnInput() {
  this.style.height = "auto";
  this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight) + "px";
}

<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here...">PRELOADED TEXT. This JavaScript should now add better support for IOS browsers and Android browsers.</textarea>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here..."></textarea>

Test on jsfiddle

OPTION 3 (jQuery Extension)

Useful if you want to apply further chaining to the textareas you want to be auto-sized.

jQuery.fn.extend({
  autoHeight: function () {
    function autoHeight_(element) {
      return jQuery(element)
        .css({ "height": "auto", "overflow-y": "hidden" })
        .height(element.scrollHeight);
    }
    return this.each(function() {
      autoHeight_(this).on("input", function() {
        autoHeight_(this);
      });
    });
  }
});

Invoke with $("textarea").autoHeight()

UPDATING TEXTAREA VIA JAVASCRIPT

When injecting content into a textarea via JavaScript append the following code to invoke the function in option 1.

$("textarea").trigger("input");

PRESET TEXTAREA HEIGHT

To fix the initial height of the textarea you will need to add an additional condition:

const txHeight = 16;
const tx = document.getElementsByTagName("textarea");
for (let i = 0; i < tx.length; i++) {
  if (tx[i].value == '') {
    tx[i].setAttribute("style", "height:" + txHeight + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
  } else {
    tx[i].setAttribute("style", "height:" + (tx[i].scrollHeight) + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
  }
  tx[i].addEventListener("input", OnInput, false);
}

function OnInput(e) {
  this.style.height = "auto";
  this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight) + "px";
}

<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here...">PRELOADED TEXT. This JavaScript should now add better support for IOS browsers and Android browsers.</textarea>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here..."></textarea>

Html – Div width 100% minus fixed amount of pixels

New way I've just stumbled upon: css calc():

.calculated-width {
    width: -webkit-calc(100% - 100px);
    width:    -moz-calc(100% - 100px);
    width:         calc(100% - 100px);
}

Source: css width 100% minus 100px