Javascript change event on input element fires on only losing focus

(function () {
    var oldVal;

    $('#name').on('change textInput input', function () {
        var val = this.value;
        if (val !== oldVal) {
            oldVal = val;
            checkLength(val);
        }
    });
}());

This will catch change, keystrokes, paste, textInput, input (when available). And not fire more than necessary.

http://jsfiddle.net/katspaugh/xqeDj/

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References:

textInput — a W3C DOM Level 3 event type. http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Events/#events-textevents

A user agent must dispatch this event when one or more characters have been entered. These characters may originate from a variety of sources, e.g., characters resulting from a key being pressed or released on a keyboard device, from the processing of an input method editor, or resulting from a voice command. Where a “paste” operation generates a simple sequence of characters, i.e., a text passage without any structure or style information, this event type should be generated as well.

input — an HTML5 event type.

Fired at controls when the user changes the value

Firefox, Chrome, IE9 and other modern browsers support it.

This event occurs immediately after modification, unlike the onchange event, which occurs when the element loses focus.

As an extention to katspaugh's answer, here's a way to do it for multiple elements using a css class.

   $('.myclass').each(function(){
        $(this).attr('oldval',$(this).val());
   });

   $('.myclass').on('change keypress paste focus textInput input',function(){
       var val = $(this).val();
       if(val != $(this).attr('oldval') ){
           $(this).attr('oldval',val); 
           checkLength($(this).val());
        }
    });

It took me 30 minutes to find it, but this is working in June 2019.

<input type="text" id="myInput" oninput="myFunction()">

and if you want to add an event listener programmatically in js

inputElement.addEventListener("input", event => {})