Limit number of characters in input field

Maxlength attribute- for browser, that support this feature.
Javascript - for others.

<input class="test-input" type="text" maxlength="12" />
<script>
$('.test-input').unbind('keyup change input paste').bind('keyup change input paste',function(e){
    var $this = $(this);
    var val = $this.val();
    var valLength = val.length;
    var maxCount = $this.attr('maxlength');
    if(valLength>maxCount){
        $this.val($this.val().substring(0,maxCount));
    }
}); 
</script>

http://jsfiddle.net/tvpRT/

make use of maxlength in input tag

<input type="text" maxlength="20" /> 

This should work for you I think.

HTML

<input type="text" name="myText" id="myText" data-maxlength="10" />

jQuery

$('#myText').keyup(validateMaxLength);

function validateMaxLength()
{
        var text = $(this).val();
        var maxlength = $(this).data('maxlength');

        if(maxlength > 0)  
        {
                $(this).val(text.substr(0, maxlength)); 
        }
}