Google Chrome Browser, Integers and HTML5 forms

In HTML5 forms you can specify the type of input that is expected with the 'type' attribute.

For example, type = "number" specifies that the input tag expects a number. In general this is great as it permits client side validation, but it can have some side effects in some cases.

The specific case that is causing me problems occurs in the Google Chrome browser when it handles integers entered into an input element with type = "number".

Rather than simple displaying the integer, Chrome inserts commas into the number.

For example, 123456789 becomes 123,456,789

The commas are not included when the form is submitted but they are there if I cut and paste the text.

I don't want these - if I give it an integer all I want to see if the integer. But there is no readily accessible option in Chrome to disable this feature.

The workaround is to explicitly set the type to text (type = "text"). You lose the client side validation but you avoid the commas.

Now, I write Rails applications and use the simple_form gem to help create forms. This knows about the types of input each form input is going to accept and so it liberally uses the 'type' attrbutes. Fortunately you can override these as follows:

    <%= f.input :myinteger, :input_html => { :type => 'text'} %>

The real solution, in my opinion, is for the browser to act very conservatively in interpreting user input. If the server wants the user to see commas then it should tell the browser explicitly.