Emulate a space bar keypress

Question

I've searched everywhere, read the docs on MDN, but I can't seem to solve this problem.

I want to emulate the client pressing the space bar using JavaScript.

I've tried:

var e = new KeyboardEvent('keydown');
e.which = e.keyCode = 32; // 32 is the keycode for the space bar
document.dispatchEvent(e);

However this hasn't worked for whatever reason; if the following event handler is put before the above code:

document.addEventListener('keydown', function(ev){
  console.log(ev.which);
});

0 is logged to the console.

For some reason, the event is triggered but the key is always 0

Can someone help me fix it?

@Satpal The API used in the answer there is deprecated now. I have tried using the answer but it failed. — Oliver, Dec 01 '15 at 10:14

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 01 '15 at 10:23

8

You may do on this way

var e = new KeyboardEvent('keydown',{'keyCode':32,'which':32});

answered Dec 01 '15 at 10:23

R Lam

Warning for others finding this: this is not IE compatible. There is more discussion on how to get around that here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26596123/internet-explorer-9-10-11-event-constructor-doesnt-work – Alexandra Oct 04 '18 at 20:53

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 01 '15 at 10:30

5

Create your event variable like that :

var e = new Event('keydown');

answered Dec 01 '15 at 10:30

J. Gobet

2 Answers2