How to get the number of lines in a textarea?

Question

What I would like is to count the number of lines in a textarea, e.g:

line 1 line 2 line 3 line 4 

should count up to 4 lines. Basically pressing enter once would transfer you to the next line

The following code isn't working:

var text = $("#myTextArea").val();    var lines = text.split("\r"); var count = lines.length; console.log(count); 

It always gives '1' no matter how many lines.

Answer 1

The problem with using "\n" or "\r" is it only counts the number of returns, if you have a line that is long it could wrap and then it wouldn't be counted as a new line. This is an alternative way to get the number of lines - so it may not be the best way.

Edit (thanks alex):

Script

$(document).ready(function(){  var lht = parseInt($('textarea').css('lineHeight'),10);  var lines = $('textarea').attr('scrollHeight') / lht;  console.log(lines); }) 

Update: There is a much more thorough answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1761203/145346

Answer 2

If you are just wanting to test hard line returns, this will work cross platform:

var text = $("#myTextArea").val();    var lines = text.split(/\r|\r\n|\n/); var count = lines.length; console.log(count); // Outputs 4