[jquery] AngularJS - Attribute directive input value change

I've got an AngularJS attribute directive, and I would like to take an action any time its parent input's value changes. Right now I'm doing it with jQuery:

angular.module("myDirective", [])
.directive("myDirective", function()
{
    return {
        restrict: "A",
        scope:
        {
            myDirective: "=myDirective"
        },
        link: function(scope, element, attrs)
        {
            element.keypress(function()
            {
                // do stuff
            });
        }
    };
});

Is there a way to do this without jQuery? I'm finding the keyPress event isn't doing exactly what I want it to, and while I'm sure I'll come up with a solution, I get a little nervous when I resort to using jQuery in an Angular project.

So what's the Angular way to do this?

Since this must have an input element as a parent, you could just use

<input type="text" ng-model="foo" ng-change="myOnChangeFunction()">

Alternatively, you could use the ngModelController and add a function to $formatters, which executes functions on input change. See http://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng.directive:ngModel.NgModelController

.directive("myDirective", function() {
  return {
    restrict: 'A',
    require: 'ngModel',
    link: function(scope, element, attr, ngModel) {
      ngModel.$formatters.push(function(value) {
        // Do stuff here, and return the formatted value.
      });
  };
};

To watch out the runtime changes in value of a custom directive, use $observe method of attrs object, instead of putting $watch inside a custom directive. Here is the documentation for the same ... $observe docs