jQuery keypress event is giving odd charachters

Question

I have made following code, but whatever I type it will always print some odd char.

$(document).keypress(function(event) {
        var character = String.fromCharCode(event.keyCode);
        $("body").append(character);
        event.preventDefault(); 
        return false;
    });

Answer 1

You can't use String.fromCharCode() for this purpose. You can write your own function that could recognize the characters.

Answer 2

keyCode is not the same as a charCode, they are different maps (And differ somewhat between browsers with arrow keys and such).

Think about it this way, what letter is Escape, or Delete?

Answer 3

change keyCode to charCode and Your code works. But this might not be a good idea - it's not cross browser I think. And it returns non-ascii chars as well (when you click tab key etc.) so you'd have to filter them out.

If You wanted a practical application try using an input field and get its text on keypress or something like that