Workshop › Text detective › Step 2 of 13

Count the characters

What we are doing

Every piece of text knows its length. We report how many characters the text has.

```js
result.textContent = 'Characters: ' + box.value.length
```

What it means

• .length of a text is how many characters it has, spaces and punctuation included.
• 'Characters: ' + ... joins a label and the number into one text.

Your turn

Change the last line of the script as shown.

Skills: Types and values

← Read the text Update as you type →

All steps

1. Read the text
2. Count the characters
3. Update as you type
4. Split into words
5. The extra-space trap
6. An empty box has no words
7. Count each word
8. Drop the punctuation
9. The most common word
10. Shift a letter
11. Encode a whole text
12. The secret line
13. Build it yourself: crack the code