jQuery Event Keypress: Which key was pressed?

Question

With jQuery, how do I find out which key was pressed when I bind to the keypress event?

$(\'#searchbox input\').bind(\'keypress\', function(e) {});


        

Answer 1

I'll just supplement solution code with this line e.preventDefault();. In case of input field of form we don't attend to submit on enter pressed

var code = (e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which);
 if(code == 13) { //Enter keycode
   e.preventDefault();
   //Do something
 }

Answer 2

Actually this is better:

 var code = e.keyCode || e.which;
 if(code == 13) { //Enter keycode
   //Do something
 }

Answer 3

This is pretty much the complete list of keyCodes:

3: "break",
8: "backspace / delete",
9: "tab",
12: 'clear',
13: "enter",
16: "shift",
17: "ctrl",
18: "alt",
19: "pause/break",
20: "caps lock",
27: "escape",
28: "conversion",
29: "non-conversion",
32: "spacebar",
33: "page up",
34: "page down",
35: "end",
36: "home ",
37: "left arrow ",
38: "up arrow ",
39: "right arrow",
40: "down arrow ",
41: "select",
42: "print",
43: "execute",
44: "Print Screen",
45: "insert ",
46: "delete",
48: "0",
49: "1",
50: "2",
51: "3",
52: "4",
53: "5",
54: "6",
55: "7",
56: "8",
57: "9",
58: ":",
59: "semicolon (firefox), equals",
60: "<",
61: "equals (firefox)",
63: "ß",
64: "@ (firefox)",
65: "a",
66: "b",
67: "c",
68: "d",
69: "e",
70: "f",
71: "g",
72: "h",
73: "i",
74: "j",
75: "k",
76: "l",
77: "m",
78: "n",
79: "o",
80: "p",
81: "q",
82: "r",
83: "s",
84: "t",
85: "u",
86: "v",
87: "w",
88: "x",
89: "y",
90: "z",
91: "Windows Key / Left ⌘ / Chromebook Search key",
92: "right window key ",
93: "Windows Menu / Right ⌘",
96: "numpad 0 ",
97: "numpad 1 ",
98: "numpad 2 ",
99: "numpad 3 ",
100: "numpad 4 ",
101: "numpad 5 ",
102: "numpad 6 ",
103: "numpad 7 ",
104: "numpad 8 ",
105: "numpad 9 ",
106: "multiply ",
107: "add",
108: "numpad period (firefox)",
109: "subtract ",
110: "decimal point",
111: "divide ",
112: "f1 ",
113: "f2 ",
114: "f3 ",
115: "f4 ",
116: "f5 ",
117: "f6 ",
118: "f7 ",
119: "f8 ",
120: "f9 ",
121: "f10",
122: "f11",
123: "f12",
124: "f13",
125: "f14",
126: "f15",
127: "f16",
128: "f17",
129: "f18",
130: "f19",
131: "f20",
132: "f21",
133: "f22",
134: "f23",
135: "f24",
144: "num lock ",
145: "scroll lock",
160: "^",
161: '!',
163: "#",
164: '$',
165: 'ù',
166: "page backward",
167: "page forward",
169: "closing paren (AZERTY)",
170: '*',
171: "~ + * key",
173: "minus (firefox), mute/unmute",
174: "decrease volume level",
175: "increase volume level",
176: "next",
177: "previous",
178: "stop",
179: "play/pause",
180: "e-mail",
181: "mute/unmute (firefox)",
182: "decrease volume level (firefox)",
183: "increase volume level (firefox)",
186: "semi-colon / ñ",
187: "equal sign ",
188: "comma",
189: "dash ",
190: "period ",
191: "forward slash / ç",
192: "grave accent / ñ / æ",
193: "?, / or °",
194: "numpad period (chrome)",
219: "open bracket ",
220: "back slash ",
221: "close bracket / å",
222: "single quote / ø",
223: "`",
224: "left or right ⌘ key (firefox)",
225: "altgr",
226: "< /git >",
230: "GNOME Compose Key",
231: "ç",
233: "XF86Forward",
234: "XF86Back",
240: "alphanumeric",
242: "hiragana/katakana",
243: "half-width/full-width",
244: "kanji",
255: "toggle touchpad"

Answer 4

Okay, I was blind:

e.which

will contain the ASCII code of the key.

See https://developer.mozilla.org/En/DOM/Event.which

Answer 5

Here's a jquery extension that will handle the enter key being pressed.

(function ($) {
    $.prototype.enterPressed = function (fn) {
        $(this).keyup(function (e) {
            if ((e.keyCode || e.which) == 13) {
                fn();
            }
        });
    };
}(jQuery || {}));

$("#myInput").enterPressed(function() {
    //do something
});

A working example can be found here http://jsfiddle.net/EnjB3/8/

Answer 6

If you are using jQuery UI you have translations for common key codes. In ui/ui/ui.core.js:

$.ui.keyCode = { 
    ...
    ENTER: 13, 
    ...
};

There's also some translations in tests/simulate/jquery.simulate.js but I could not find any in the core JS library. Mind you, I merely grep'ed the sources. Maybe there is some other way to get rid of these magic numbers.

You can also make use of String.charCodeAt and .fromCharCode:

>>> String.charCodeAt('\r') == 13
true
>>> String.fromCharCode(13) == '\r'
true