Question

This is a simple listener:

$("#target").keypress(function(event) {
  alert("test");
});

I want to take separate function out but it won’t work:

$("#target").keypress(doAlert(event));

function doAlert(event)
{
  alert("test");
}

What am I missing?

Answer 1

You want:

$("#target").keypress(doAlert);

Your original:

$("#target").keypress(doAlert(event));

…calls the doAlert function and passes its return value into keypress, just like any other function call. You want to give keypress a reference to the doAlert function, you don’t want to give it doAlert‘s return value. (If doAlert created and returned an event handler function you might do that, but that’s not what you’ve written.)