How to make HTML input tag only accept numerical values?

Chiel ten Brinke picture Chiel ten Brinke · Dec 19, 2012 · Viewed 693.3k times · Source

I need to make sure that a certain <input> field only takes numbers as value. The input is not part of a form. Hence it doesn't get submitted, so validating during submission is not an option. I want the user to be unable to type in any characters other than numbers.

Is there a neat way to achieve this?

Answer

Viral Patel picture Viral Patel · Dec 19, 2012

HTML 5

You can use HTML5 input type number to restrict only number entries:

<input type="number" name="someid" />

This will work only in HTML5 complaint browser. Make sure your html document's doctype is:

<!DOCTYPE html>

See also https://github.com/jonstipe/number-polyfill for transparent support in older browsers.

JavaScript

Update: There is a new and very simple solution for this:

It allows you to use any kind of input filter on a text <input>, including various numeric filters. This will correctly handle Copy+Paste, Drag+Drop, keyboard shortcuts, context menu operations, non-typeable keys, and all keyboard layouts.

See this answer or try it yourself on JSFiddle.

For general purpose, you can have JS validation as below:

function isNumberKey(evt){
    var charCode = (evt.which) ? evt.which : evt.keyCode
    if (charCode > 31 && (charCode < 48 || charCode > 57))
        return false;
    return true;
}

<input name="someid" type="number" onkeypress="return isNumberKey(event)"/>

If you want to allow decimals replace the "if condition" with this:

if (charCode > 31 && (charCode != 46 &&(charCode < 48 || charCode > 57)))

Source: HTML text input allow only numeric input

JSFiddle demo: http://jsfiddle.net/viralpatel/nSjy7/