How to change the Content of a <textarea> with JavaScript
If you can use jQuery, and I highly recommend you do, you would simply do
$('#myTextArea').val('');
Otherwise, it is browser dependent. Assuming you have
var myTextArea = document.getElementById('myTextArea');
In most browsers you do
myTextArea.innerHTML = '';
But in Firefox, you do
myTextArea.innerText = '';
Figuring out what browser the user is using is left as an exercise for the reader. Unless you use jQuery, of course ;)
Edit: I take that back. Looks like support for .innerHTML on textarea's has improved. I tested in Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, all of them cleared the textarea correctly.
Edit 2: And I just checked, if you use .val('') in jQuery, it just sets the .value property for textarea's. So .value should be fine.
Like this:
document.getElementById('myTextarea').value = '';
or like this in jQuery:
$('#myTextarea').val('');
Where you have
<textarea id="myTextarea" name="something">This text gets removed</textarea>
For all the downvoters and non-believers:
Here's the MSDN reference
value Property: Retrieves or sets the text in the entry field of the textArea element.
Here's the MDN reference
value DOMString The raw value contained in the control.