keypress and keyup - why is the keyCode different?

Question

Related: JavaScript KeyCode vs CharCode

Here is some code you can try at home or in a jsfiddle:

el.addEventListener( 'keyup', function( e ) {      console.log( 'Keyup event' );     console.log( e.keyCode ); } );  el.addEventListener( 'keypress', function( e ) {      console.log( 'Keypress event' );     console.log( e.keyCode ); } ); 

Why is the keyCode different?

I can understand why one should use keypress only, but what I don't understand is how two key events, given the same hit key on the keyboard, give different keyCodes.

PS: I'm not worrying about legacy browsers support, I tried this in Chrome and was surprised, and couldn't find an explanation.

Answer 1

The events are for completely different purposes. Use keyup and keydown for identifying physical keys and keypress for identifying typed characters. The two are fundamentally different tasks with different events; don't try to mix the two. In particular, keyCode on keypress events is usually redundant and shouldn't be used (except in older IE, but see the linked document below for more on that); for printable keypresses it's usually the same as which and charCode, although there is some variation between browsers.

Jan Wolter's article on key events, already linked to in another answer, is the definitive word on this subject for me and has tables describing what each of the different properties returns for each type of key event and each browser.

Answer 2

There is a good article on quirksmode.org answering exactly that question. You might also want to look at Unixpapa's results.