# form.text\_area, how do you empty its contents?

**URL:** <https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931>\
**Category:** rubyonrails-talk\
**Created:** [October 31, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931 "2008-10-31T17:34:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tan\_YL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e4f/32.png) [@Tan\_YL](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/Tan_YL)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931/1 "2008-10-31T17:34:47Z")

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Hi, after i click submit and refresh the parital(with page.replace\_html) with the remote\_form\_for, the \<%= form.text\_area :body, :rows =\> 10, :cols =\> 40 %\> still contains the previous text. how do i totally remove the text inside of it?

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**Author:** ![Tan\_YL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e4f/32.png) [@Tan\_YL](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/Tan_YL)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931/2 "2008-10-31T18:07:35Z")

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Never mind i got it @comment.body = "" before the page.replace

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**Author:** ![Tan\_YL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e4f/32.png) [@Tan\_YL](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/Tan_YL)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931/3 "2008-10-31T19:01:22Z")

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On further look investigation I haven't really solved the problem. The text is erased after I submit the form but it still remains when I refresh the page.

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**Author:** ![sw0rdfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/edb3f5/32.png) [@sw0rdfish](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/sw0rdfish)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931/4 "2008-10-31T19:23:53Z")

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That's the browser doing that... I don't think you can stop it from doing that on a refresh.

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**Author:** ![sw0rdfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/edb3f5/32.png) [@sw0rdfish](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/sw0rdfish)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 7:24pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931/5 "2008-10-31T19:24:25Z")

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Actually... I'm sure you could do it with Javascript

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**Author:** ![Tan\_YL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e4f/32.png) [@Tan\_YL](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/Tan_YL)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/form-text-area-how-do-you-empty-its-contents/35931/6 "2008-10-31T19:36:14Z")

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Yeah I managed to find out shortly after I typed that message page.form.reset