function getCookie (name) {
    var dcookie = document.cookie; 
    var cname = name + "=";
    var clen = dcookie.length;
    var cbegin = 0;
    var rvalue;
        while (cbegin < clen) {
        var vbegin = cbegin + cname.length;
            if (dcookie.substring(cbegin, vbegin) == cname) { 
            var vend = dcookie.indexOf (";", vbegin);
                if (vend == -1) vend = clen;
            	rvalue = unescape(dcookie.substring(vbegin, vend));
            	if(rvalue=="deleted"||rvalue=="DELETED"){
            		return null;	
            	}else{
            		return rvalue;
            	
            	}
            }
        	cbegin = dcookie.indexOf(" ", cbegin) + 1;
            if (cbegin == 0) break;
        }
    return null;
}

function textCounter(field, countfield, maxlimit) {
	if (field.value.length > maxlimit)
		field.value = field.value.substring(0, maxlimit);
	else 
		countfield.value = maxlimit - field.value.length;
}

function trim(inputString) {
   // Removes leading and trailing spaces from the passed string. Also removes
   // consecutive spaces and replaces it with one space. If something besides
   // a string is passed in (null, custom object, etc.) then return the input.
   if (typeof inputString != "string") { return inputString; }
   var retValue = inputString;
   var ch = retValue.substring(0, 1);
   while (ch == " ") { // Check for spaces at the beginning of the string
      retValue = retValue.substring(1, retValue.length);
      ch = retValue.substring(0, 1);
   }
   ch = retValue.substring(retValue.length-1, retValue.length);
   while (ch == " ") { // Check for spaces at the end of the string
      retValue = retValue.substring(0, retValue.length-1);
      ch = retValue.substring(retValue.length-1, retValue.length);
   }
   while (retValue.indexOf("  ") != -1) { // Note that there are two spaces in the string - look for multiple spaces within the string
      retValue = retValue.substring(0, retValue.indexOf("  ")) + retValue.substring(retValue.indexOf("  ")+1, retValue.length); // Again, there are two spaces in each of the strings
   }
   return retValue; // Return the trimmed string back to the user
} // Ends the "trim" function