<p>This method is a shortcut for <code>.bind('keypress', handler)</code> in the first variation, and <code>.trigger('keypress')</code> in the second.</p>
<p>The <code>keypress</code> event is sent to an element when the browser registers keyboard input. This is similar to the <code>keydown</code> event, except in the case of key repeats. If the user presses and holds a key, a <code>keydown </code>event is triggered once, but separate <code>keypress</code> events are triggered for each inserted character. In addition, modifier keys (such as Shift) cause <code>keydown</code> events but not <code>keypress</code> events.</p>
<p>A <code>keypress</code> event handler can be attached to any element, but the event is only sent to the element that has the focus. Focusable elements can vary between browsers, but form elements can always get focus so are reasonable candidates for this event type.</p>
<p>The event handler can be bound to the input field:</p>
<pre>$('#target').keypress(function() {
alert('Handler for .keypress() called.');
});</pre>
<p>Now when the insertion point is inside the field and a key is pressed, the alert is displayed:</p>
<p><spanclass="output">Handler for .keypress() called.</span></p>
<p>The message repeats if the key is held down. We can trigger the event manually when another element is clicked:</p>
<pre>$('#other').click(function() {
$('#target').keypress();
});</pre>
<p>After this code executes, clicks on <spanclass="output">Trigger the handler</span> will also alert the message.</p>
<p>If key presses anywhere need to be caught (for example, to implement global shortcut keys on a page), it is useful to attach this behavior to the <code>document</code> object. Because of event bubbling, all key presses will make their way up the DOM to the <code>document</code> object unless explicitly stopped.</p>
<p>To determine which character was entered, we can examine the event object that is passed to the handler function. While browsers use differing attributes to store this information, jQuery normalizes the <code>.which</code> attribute so we can reliably use it to retrieve the character code.</p>
<p>Note that <code>keydown</code> and <code>keyup</code> provide a code indicating which key is pressed, while <code>keypress</code> indicates which character was entered. For example, a lowercase "a" will be reported as 65 by <code>keydown</code> and <code>keyup</code>, but as 97 by <code>keypress</code>. An uppercase "A" is reported as 65 by all events. Because of this distinction, when catching special keystrokes such as arrow keys, <code>.keydown()</code> or <code>.keyup()</code> is a better choice.</p>
