UIEvent.isChar

The UIEvent.isChar read-only property returns a Boolean indicating whether the event produced a key character or not.

Syntax

var isChar = UIEvent.isChar;

Value

A Boolean which is true if the event produces a character; otherwise false. Some keystroke combinations may raise events but not produce any character (example: ctrl-alt-?). When this is the case, isChar returns false. It is used when event handlers need to do something like echo the input on the screen.

Example

In this snippet, which is part of an event handler, the event is checked to see if it generates a character; if it does, the value of UIEvent.which is appended to a string which buffers the typed characters.

if (event.isChar) {
  characterBuffer += e.which;
}

Specification

This property is not part of any specification.

Browser compatibility

[1] The isChar property has never been supported by any browser but Firefox, and even in Firefox it always returned false on any plaform other than macOS. For that reason, it's been removed in Firefox 55 to align with other browsers.

See also

• UIEvent