Clearing the input field on focus in JavaScript

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to clear the input field (value) on focus. It means whenever we click on a input field the previous value should be cleared.

Consider we have an input field like this.

<input type="text" id="name" value="Coach" />

To clear the html input field whenever we focus on it, first we need to access it inside the JavaScript using the document.getElementById() method.

const inputField = document.getElementById("name");

Now, we need to attach the focus event handler using the addEventListener() method then clear the input field by setting a inputField.value = " ".

inputField.addEventListener("focus", ()=>{
    // clearing the input field value
   inputField.value = " ";
})

Full example:

const inputField = document.getElementById("name");

inputField.addEventListener("focus", ()=>{
    // clearing the input field value
   inputField.value = " ";
})

Similarly, you can also clear an input field using the onfocus inline event handler.

<input type="text" id="name" value="Coach" onfocus="this.value=''"/>

this keyword is pointing to the HTML element you are focussing on.