jQuery get input value after keypress

Question

I have the following function:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $("#dSuggest").keypress(function() {
        var dInput = $('input:text[name=dSuggest]').val();
        console.log(dInput);
        $(".dDimension:contains('" + dInput + "')").css("display","block");
    });
});

For some reason, for the first keypress, I'm getting an empty string to the console log.

Answer 1

This is because keypress events are fired before the new character is added to the value of the element (so the first keypress event is fired before the first character is added, while the value is still empty). You should use keyup instead, which is fired after the character has been added.

Note that, if your element #dSuggest is the same as input:text[name=dSuggest] you can simplify this code considerably (and if it isn't, having an element with a name that is the same as the id of another element is not a good idea).

$('#dSuggest').keypress(function() {
    var dInput = this.value;
    console.log(dInput);
    $(".dDimension:contains('" + dInput + "')").css("display","block");
});