files/en-us/web/api/validitystate/tooshort/index.md
{{APIRef("HTML DOM")}}
The read-only tooShort property of the ValidityState interface indicates if the value of an {{HTMLElement("input")}}, {{HTMLElement("button")}}, {{HTMLElement("select")}}, {{HTMLElement("output")}}, {{HTMLElement("fieldset")}} or {{HTMLElement("textarea")}}, after having been edited by the user, is less than the minimum code-unit length established by the element's minlength attribute.
A boolean that is true if the ValidityState does not conform to the constraints.
The following example checks the validity of a text input element.
A constraint has been added using the minlength attribute so the input expects a string with a minimum of 4 characters.
If the user enters a string that's too short, the element fails constraint validation, and the styles matching {{cssxref(":invalid")}} CSS pseudo-class are applied.
input:invalid {
outline: red solid 3px;
}
body {
margin: 0.5rem;
}
pre {
padding: 1rem;
height: 2rem;
background-color: lightgrey;
outline: 1px solid grey;
}
<pre id="log">Validation logged here...</pre>
<input type="text" id="userText" minlength="4" />
const userInput = document.getElementById("userText");
const logElement = document.getElementById("log");
function log(text) {
logElement.innerText = text;
}
userInput.addEventListener("input", () => {
userInput.reportValidity();
if (userInput.validity.tooShort) {
log("Not enough characters entered.");
} else {
log("Input is valid…");
}
});
{{EmbedLiveSample("input_with_too_short_string_value", "100%", "140")}}
{{Specifications}}
{{Compat}}