Get textarea in codebehind

Question

I am trying to get a textarea value from code behind using the following code.

  HtmlTextArea bodytextarea = new HtmlTextArea();
    bodytextarea = (HtmlTextArea)(this.FindControl("codearea"));
    string txtbod = bodytextarea.Value;

When i debug it i get a null reference exception saying that bodytextarea is null. I have to mention that my textarea is not runat="server" and i do not want to make it on server side. Any help?

Answer 1

You should add runat="server" to your <TextArea id="myTextArea" runat="server" />

like this you can directly get the value in code behind just by using the ID of the textarea

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And if you dont wanna use server side then you have to use Jquery to get the value and create a [webmethod] method in your code behind so Jquery can call that method passing the value

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or simply string data = request["codearea"];

Answer 2

If it's not a runat="server" control, then you have to get the value from the http context. The value from the textarea will be treated as a (most likely) POST or GET variable.

see also: Get POST data in C#/ASP.NET

and Getting a POST variable

official MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httpcontext.aspx