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Definition and Usage. The <textarea> tag defines a multi-line text input control. The <textarea> element is often used in a form, to collect user inputs like comments or reviews. A text area can hold an unlimited number of characters, and the text renders in a fixed-width font (usually Courier).
HTML5 introduced a few new attributes which can be used with textarea elements. Here are some of the most important: form : Associates the textarea with a form. Use the ID attribute of the form as the value for the textarea form attributes.
The <textarea> element also accepts several attributes common to form <input> s, such as autocomplete , autofocus , disabled , placeholder , readonly , and required .
Set the text value as the contents. Insert the textarea element into the DOM after the text box. Remove the text box. Give the code a try and post back with any problems that you have with it.
Maybe this is going a bit too far back but…
Also, I’d like to suggest that multiline text fields have a different type (e.g. “textarea") than single-line fields ("text"), as they really are different types of things, and imply different issues (semantics) for client-side handling.
– Marc Andreessen, 11 October 1993
So that its value can easily contain quotes and <> characters and respect whitespace and newlines.
The following HTML code successfully pass the w3c validator and displays <,> and & without the need to encode them. It also respects the white spaces.
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<title>Yes I can</title>
</head>
<body>
<textarea name="test">
I can put < and > and & signs in
my textarea without any problems.
</textarea>
</body>
</html>
A textarea can contain multiple lines of text, so one wouldn't be able to pre-populate it using a value attribute.
Similarly, the select element needs to be its own element to accommodate option sub-elements.
It was a limitation of the technology at the time it was created. My answer copied over from Programmers.SE:
From one of the original HTML drafts:
NOTE: In the initial design for forms, multi-line text fields were supported by the Input element with TYPE=TEXT. Unfortunately, this causes problems for fields with long text values. SGML's default (Reference Quantity Set) limits the length of attribute literals to only 240 characters. The HTML 2.0 SGML declaration increases the limit to 1024 characters.
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