change

The change event is fired for <input>, <select>, and <textarea> elements when a change to the element's value is committed by the user. Unlike the input event, the change event is not necessarily fired for each change to an element's value.

General info

Specification

HTML5

Interface

Event

Bubbles

Yes

Cancelable

No

Target

Element

Default Action

undefined

Properties

Description

Depending on the kind of form element being changed and the way the user interacts with the element, the change event fires at a different moment:

• When the element is activated (by clicking or using the keyboard) for <input type="radio"> and <input type="checkbox">;
• When the user commits the change explicitly (e.g. by selecting a value from a <select>'s dropdown with a mouse click, by selecting a date from a date picker for <input type="date">, by selecting a file in the file picker for <input type="file">, etc.);
• When the element loses focus after its value was changed, but not commited (e.g. after editing the value of <textarea> or <input type="text">).

Different browsers do not always agree whether a change event should be fired for certain types of interaction. For example, keyboard navigation in <select> elements never fires a change event in Gecko until the user hits Enter or switches the focus away from the <select> (see bug 126379).

The HTML specification lists the <input> types that should fire the change event.

Examples

An incomplete example, which probably doesn't work on all browsers, on jsfiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/nfakc/5/.

Example: Change event on a select

The following code handles the change event on a <select> by calling the changeEventHandler() function in the onchange attribute. It reads the value of the event target and shows it in an alert.

<label>Choose an ice cream flavor: </label>
<select size="1" onchange="changeEventHandler(event);">
  <option>chocolate</option>
  <option>strawberry</option>
  <option>vanilla</option>
</select>

The JavaScript code is simple:

function changeEventHandler(event) {
  alert('You like ' + event.target.value + ' ice cream.');
}

The result looks like this:

See also

This event is also fired in several non-standard APIs:

• NetworkInformation.connection fires the change event when the connection information changes.
• DeviceStorageChangeEvent is triggered each time a file is created, modified, or deleted from the device storage system.

Browser compatibility

According to QuirksMode Chrome and Firefox have been compatible for some time, but IE9 and earlier versions of IE10 have incomplete support.