You can't, from the server side, control what the user enters into the TEXTAREA field.

If all you want to do is trim the string to be 1100 characters at most, just do this:

use constant MAX_CHARS => 1100;
if ( length($str) > MAX_CHARS ) {
    $str = substr( $str, 0, MAX_CHARS );
}
[download]

update: As a later reply points out, the length test is not necessary. If you don't want to do the test, at least point out WHY it is that you're calling substr.

# Limit the string's length
$str = substr( $str, 0, MAX_CHARS );
[download]

xoxo,
Andy

%_=split/;/,".;;n;u;e;ot;t;her;c; ".   #   Andy Lester
'Perl ;@; a;a;j;m;er;y;t;p;n;d;s;o;'.  #   http://petdance.com
"hack";print map delete$_{$_},split//,q<   andy@petdance.com   >