jQuery detect if textarea is empty

Question

I am trying to determine if a textarea is empty if a user deletes what is already pre-populated in the textarea using jQuery.

Anyway to do this?

This is what I have and its not working

$(textarea).live('change', function(){             if($(this).val().length == 0) {                 $(submitButtonClass).addClass('disabled_button');                 $(submitButtonClass).removeClass('transSubmit');             } else {                 $('.disabled_button').addClass('transSubmit').css({                     'cursor':'pointer'                 }).removeClass('disabled_button');             }         }); 

Answer 1

if (!$("#myTextArea").val()) {     // textarea is empty } 

You can also use $.trim to make sure the element doesn't contain only white-space:

if (!$.trim($("#myTextArea").val())) {     // textarea is empty or contains only white-space } 

Answer 2

if (!$.trim($("element").val())) {  }