KeyListener - Why is the keyPressed method is delayed by one type?

Question

What I want to do is the moment I pressed the keyboard, whatever is written on the textfield will be shown in the System.out.printLn(). but for every type I make, it will only be shown if I pressed another key.

for example.. I press 'A' ...then a blank space will be shown. I press 'B' ...then 'A' will be shown. I press 'C' ...then 'AB' will be shown.

what I want is if I press 'A' ...then 'A' will be shown...etc is it possible? I also tried this on keyTyped() but the result is just the same..

here is my short code for this...

import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.awt.event.KeyListener;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextField;

public class NewClass extends JFrame implements KeyListener{
JTextField tf = new JTextField();
NewClass(){
    this.setLayout(null);
    tf.setBounds(50, 50, 200, 30);

    add(tf);
    tf.addKeyListener(this);
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    NewClass r = new NewClass();
    r.setVisible(true);
    r.setSize(300, 200);
    r.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}

@Override
public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {
}

@Override
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
    System.out.println(tf.getText());
}

@Override
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
}

}

Any suggestions? thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

The problem is that keyPressed is being called before the TextBox is updated.

Instead of

tf.addKeyListener(this);

Try using this:

tf.getDocument().addDocumentListener(new DocumentListener() {
public void changedUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
    printIt();
}
public void removeUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
    printIt();
}
public void insertUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
    printIt();
}

public void printIt() {
    System.out.println(tf.getText());
}

You'll need to import javax.swing.event.DocumentEvent and javax.swing.event.DocumentListener.