Javascript: event.which and charCodeAt working together

Question

I take what the user typed using event.which on a keypress, and output using String.fromCharCode.

User types: a
event.which: 67
Outputs: A

For numbers and letters I can handle, but when talking about special characters, I get totally different outputs.

User types: -
event.which: 189
Outputs: ½

After a research, I came across the function charCodeAt, and using this one, the output comes perfectly, even special characters.

Unfortunately, I can't use charCodeAt because the user types directly from the $(document), and not from a field.

So, the question is, is there a way I can get the right charCode from the keyPress event.which?

If still can't figure out my doubt, I made you a Fiddle =)

Answer 1

Use the keypress event instead of keyup. It reports character code instead of key codes, and it triggers when actual characters are typed, not when a key is released, so it handles repeated characters too.

$('#field').focus().keypress(function(e){
  var key = e.which;
  $("#key").val(String.fromCharCode(key));
});

http://jsfiddle.net/Guffa/QCHt7/1/

Edit:

If you want to catch keypresses everywhere, you have to hook up the event on the document, and also on any elements that consumes keypresses. A textbox for example will handle the keypress and won't let it bubble up to the parent element.