[Suggestions] counting characters in a textarea

You can do it with jQuery:

<script>

        // Text Counter

        (function($) {
            $.fn.extend( {
                limiter: function(limit, elem) {
                    $(this).on("keyup focus", function() {
                        setCount(this, elem);
                    });
                    function setCount(src, elem) {
                        var chars = src.value.length;
                        if (chars > limit) {
                            src.value = src.value.substr(0, limit);
                            chars = limit;
                        }
                        elem.html( limit - chars );
                    }
                    setCount($(this)[0], elem);
                }
            });
        })(jQuery);

        var elem = $("#chars");
        $("#text").limiter(40, elem);

    </script>

HTML

<span id="chars"></span>
<input name="name" id="text" type="text" >

In PHP use strlen($string).

http://php.net/manual/en/function.strlen.php

First one when I Googled PHP string length.

Can't edit by phone, but wanted to add you can use vue for request to API in PHP (laravel) that keeps the number going or use vue to count as the person's typing.

@jekinney I would like to count as the person is typing i'll look into vue

just cant seem to get the scripts to work for me Javascript in general doesn't seem to want to work