We Keep Coding

How to submit an HTML table's code from a textarea field then parse it into an array

I am trying to make a spreadsheet addon where I have a textarea field where users will be putting the HTML for a table in a field, and I need my script to then take that HTML code, parse it and convert it into an array or object by which I can easily access the table's cells.
The problem I'm facing is that I don't seem to be able to turn the HTML code submitted as text back into a jQuery object I can loop through.
Tl;Dr:
How do I submit a table's HTML code from a form as text and turn it back into an HTML object so I can turn the table into an array/object?
I'm using $("#invoice-info").val() to get its content but using any other methods afterwards gives errors (All of them are either nonspecific or something about "Expected expression but got >", sorry I'm new to JavaScript so I have a hard time debugging it).
Here's the relevant HTML for the form itself:
<form onsubmit="return(false)">
<div class="block col-contain">
<div>
<textarea class="width-100" id="invoice-info" rows="10"></textarea>
<label for="invoice-info">Invoice Table</label>
</div>
</div>
<div class="block" id="button-bar">
<button class="blue" id="make-receipt" onclick='doTest()'>Generate</button>
</div>
</form>

You need to take the result of $("#invoice-info").val() and put it in a domNode. Because it returns a string. var tempDomNode = document.createElement('div'); tempDomNode.innerHTML =$("#invoice-info").val().
So you 'convert' the string into a domNode and then you will be able to use that domNode with or without jQuery to construct your array.
Note : you have to handle the case of a malformed sting (not valid as HTML)
Edit : just found this question on SO : https://stackoverflow.com/a/11047751/1836175 seems to address the same problem.

angularjs removing special characters in dynamic form elements

I am trying to use angularjs dynamic form elements but when I type something in inputs, there are appearing many special characters []"": and field, value .etc in textarea, I just want to see in textarea what I wrote in inputs ,
this is what I am working on it http://plnkr.co/edit/JbjqjAoQ3odBhXF1a13r?p=preview
sorry for my poor english,,,

What Chris Story says is correct. You are trying to model the text value of the <textarea> to an array of objects, inputs
If you are just trying to display the results like it seems, a <textarea> is not the way to go. You can display them in a simple list, like this:
<ul>
<li ng-repeat="input in inputs">{{input.field}} = {{input.value}}</li>
</ul>
EDIT
To display it in a <textarea>, you will need to store the list as string to use. This can be done by appending each item into a single string each time there is a change to an input value using ng-change.
Change the inputs to utilize the ng-change:
<div ng-repeat="input in inputs">
<input type="text" ng-model="input.field" ng-change="inputChanged()" />
<input type="text" ng-model="input.value" ng-change="inputChanged()" />
<button ng-click="removeInput($index); inputChanged()">Remove</button>
</div>
And create the function that is called to maintain the string:
$scope.inputChanged = function() {
$scope.listString = "";
for(var i = 0; i < $scope.inputs.length; i++) {
var field = $scope.inputs[i].field;
var value = $scope.inputs[i].value;
$scope.listString += field + " = " + value + "; ";
}
}
And finally, use this $scope.listString in the <textarea>:
<textarea rows="22" cols="55" ng-model="listString"></textarea>
I have forked your Plunkr here
The behavior does not make much sense from a UX perspective, but this seems to match your requirement. An option that might make sense is to add disabled="true" to the <textarea> so it can not be edited.

The issue is that you are rendering {{inputs}} and inputs is an Array.

Limit number of lines able to write with textarea

I want to not just limit the number of times enter can be pressed in the text area but stop the output being over two lines. To better explain, I have a photo frame designer here. In the options you can enter text and it will appear on the frame. Currently if you try to press enter in text area more than 2 times it won't let you. The problem arises when the text is too long and it automatically wraps to a new line.
Here is some relevant code.
$(document).ready(function(){
var lines = 2;
var linesUsed = $('#linesUsed');
$('#input').keydown(function(e) {
newLines = $(this).val().split("\n").length;
linesUsed.text(newLines);
if(e.keyCode == 13 && newLines >= lines) {
return false;
}
});
});
That's some jquery that limits the number of lines in the TEXTAREA.
And the textarea
<textarea id="input" maxlength="40" name="Text" value="Max. 40 characters"></textarea>
The jquery that prints the input from the text area
$('#input').keyup(function() {
$('#text').html($(this).val());
});
This is the embedded html in my svg where the typed text is printed to.
<foreignObject x="135" y="520" width="600" height="260" style="color:white;text-align:center">
<body xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<div id="container2">
<p id="text">Your words here</p>
</div>
</body>
</foreignObject>

Automatic line wrapping in a textarea can be prevented using the attribute wrap=off, which is nonstandard but widely supported since the early days of HTML.
<textarea id="input" maxlength="40" name="Text"
placeholder="Max. 40 characters" wrap="off"></textarea>
(I have changed the value attribute to a placeholder attribute. The value attribute is not valid for textarea.)
A different, possibly better approach is to avoid the problem by using two input type=text fields instead of one textarea field. Then you would not need JavaScript for preventing the entry of more than two lines, but if a limit on the total number of characters (instead of just setting a limit on each line) is needed, you would need simple JavaScript for that.

Here are 2 javascript libraries that can help you with this:
Stop Verbosity
Limit
As you can see on the demo-sites, both these solutions just work.

search html div and display results on different page

I want to search multiple HTML files from a separate page, where I search for text from all the divs which has a specific id for each, whole id containing matched search term will be displayed on the search page in list.
The div list looks like this :
<body>
<div class='vs'>
<div id='header 1'>content 1 here </div>
<div id='header 2'>another text </div>
<div id='header 3'>whatever </div>
</div>
</body>
Please note that I want to perform search from different page and want to display results there with links to the searchable page.
For now I was searching like this :
HTML
<body>
<input type="text" id='search' />
<div class='vs'>
<div id='header 1'>content 1 here </div>
<div id='header 2'>another text </div>
<div id='header 3'>whatever </div>
</div>
</body>
JavaScript
$('#search').on('input', function () {
var text = $(this).val();
$('.vs div').show();
$('.vs div:not(:contains(' + text + '))').hide();
});
It is working on the fiddle here, but I don't want it to work like this, I want to do the search from a separate page remotely and display results there with link to this page.

Solution with jQuery and AJAX:
<form id="searchForm">
<input type="text" id="search"/>
<input type="submit" name="Search!" />
</form>
<div id="resultContainer">
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
$("#searchForm").submit(function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
var results = $("#resultContainer");
var text = $("#search").val();
results.empty();
$.get("http://example.com/", function(data) {
results.append($(data).find("div:contains(" + text + ")"));
});
});
</script>
Fiddle (This fiddle enables you to search for content on the jsfiddle page, try for example JSFiddle as search term.)
Note however that this does not work cross-domain, because browsers will prevent cross-site scripting. You didn't describe your use-case clear enough for me to know whether you're okay with that.

You'll want to look at using PHP file_get_contents to retrieve the HTML contents of the external page, and from there analyze the data in the <div>s that you are interested in. Ultimately, you'll want to store each individual search term in a JavaScript array (you can create JavaScript arrays dynamically using PHP), and then create search functionality similar to example you posted to search all the elements in your array.
So on page load, you'll want to have a <div> in which you are going to list all the elements from the array. You can list these by looping through the array and displaying each individual element. From there, you will want to call a function every time the user enters or deletes a character in the <input> box. This function will update the <div> with an updated list of elements that match the string in the <input> box.
This is the theory behind what you are trying to accomplish. Hopefully it will give you some direction as to how to write your code.
Update:
If you're looking for a JavaScript only solution, check out a JavaScript equivalent of PHP's file_get_contents: http://phpjs.org/functions/file_get_contents/
From here, you can maybe look at using .split to break up the list. Ultimately, you're still trying to store each individual search term as an element in an array, it's just the method that you retrieve these terms is different (JavaScript as opposed to PHP).
Perhaps I was emphasizing too much on PHP, perhaps it's because it's the web development language I'm most familiar with. Hope this JavaScript-only solution is helpful.

Why do two forms appear?

I am using jQuery and bootstrap to give drop-down search suggestions.Following is the html code.But when I type something in the search form and then clear the form.Two forms apears as in the picture.Why? I am new to jQuery. Thanks for any help.
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<div class="span6 offset3">
<form class="form-search">
<input type="text" id="month" name="month" class="input-medium search-query">
<button type="submit" class="btn">Search</button>
<div id="suggestions">
</div>
</form>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<script>
jQuery("#month").keyup(function(){
ajax('search', ['month'], 'suggestions')});
</script>
EDIT:
I am using web2py framwork.This is the search function's code:
def search():
if not request.vars.month: return dict()
month_start = request.vars.month
selected=complete('piracyfinder',month_start) #this line get the search results
return DIV(*[DIV(k['title'],
_onclick="jQuery('#month').val('%s')" % k['title'],
_onmouseover="this.style.backgroundColor='lightblue'",
_onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='white'"
) for k in selected])

It appears you are using the same function (i.e., search()) to fill in the suggestions as well as to create the form (though that function doesn't process the form when submitted). According to the logic, when request.vars.month is either empty or does not exist, the function returns an empty dict. This will result in the associated view (i.e., /views/[controller name]/search.html) being executed and returned. Presumably the search.html view contains the HTML code shown above. So, when you clear the input box, the keyup handler is triggered and sends an empty month variable, which results in a new copy of the form being sent back and inserted in the "suggestions" div. You can avoid this problem by checking whether request.vars.month exists:
if not request.vars.month:
return '' if 'month' in request.vars else dict()
A better approach might simply be to use different functions for the search form and the suggestions given that they do completely different things and don't share any code.

if not request.vars.month also applies to the month var existing but being empty. Therefore, it's returning the form.
You need to do one of these:
Have your "suggestions" code be in a different page/file
Add a isAJAX variable to the request (or some other way to identify AJAX requests)
Check if the variable exists, rather than checking if it is falsy.