Get textarea value once a key pressed

Question

I have an function executed after a keypress event :

$("#txtarea").keypress(function(){
    alert(document.getElementById("txtarea").value);
});

I want to return the new text of the textarea after every keypress, so that it can be used simultanuously in other javascript functions.

The problem with this script is that once a key is pressed, the function displays "" empty string.

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Try to use keyup instead of keypress

Answer 2

The keypress just get fired before the value assigned. Like every other event(click, submit etc'...) so you can cancel the default behavior and "stuff"

$('#txtarea').keypress(function(event) {
    return false; // this will disable the new value assignment
});

You can find out what button was clicked with event.which and work with it.

Example:

<input id="txtarea" />​

$('#txtarea').keypress(function(e){
    var value = this.value; 
    alert(value);
    alert(value + String.fromCharCode(e.which))
})​;

JSFiddle DEMO

You can also use the keyup event, but it has other meaning and usage than keypress.
Be aware!