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1 perry 1 SHOWKEY
2 !!!SHOWKEY
3 NAME
4 SYNOPSIS
5 DESCRIPTION
6 COMMANDS
7 OPTIONS
8 AUTHOR
9 BUGS
10 SEE ALSO
11 ----
12 !!NAME
13
14
15 showkey - examine the scan codes and keycodes sent by the keyboard
16 !!SYNOPSIS
17
18
19 __showkey [[ -[[__''hVskm''__] |__ ''--help''
20 __|__ ''--version'' __|__ ''--scancodes''
21 __|__ ''--keycodes'' __|__ ''--keymap'' __]
22 [[__ ''-t'' __N |__ ''--timeout=''__N
23 ]__
24 !!DESCRIPTION
25
26
27 __showkey__ prints to standard output either the scan
28 codes, the keycode, or the character of each key
29 pressed/released. The program runs until 10 seconds (or the
30 amount of time specified by the ''--timeout'' or
31 ''-t'' option) has elapsed since the last key press or
32 release event, or until it receives a suitable signal, like
33 SIGTERM, from another process.
34
35
36 __showkey__ has three modes of operation, scancode
37 dumping, keycode dumping, and keymap testing, selected by a
38 command line option (see below).
39 !!COMMANDS
40
41
42 ''-h --help''
43
44
45 __showkey__ prints to the standard error output its
46 version number, a short usage message, then
47 exits.
48
49
50 ''-V --version''
51
52
53 __showkey__ prints to the standard error output its
54 version number, then exits.
55
56
57 ''-s --scancodes''
58
59
60 Starts __showkey__ in scan code dump mode.
61
62
63 In this mode, __showkey__ prints in hexadecimal format
64 each byte received from the keyboard to the standard output.
65 A new line is printed when an interval of about 0.1 seconds
66 occurs between the bytes received, or when the internal
67 receive buffer fills up. This can be used to determine
68 roughly, what byte sequences the keyboard sends at once on a
69 given key press. The scan code dumping mode is primarily
70 intended for debugging the keyboard driver or other low
71 level interfaces. As such it shouldn't be of much interest
72 to the regular end-user.
73
74
75 ''-k --keycodes''
76
77
78 Starts __showkey__ in keycode dump mode. This is the
79 default, when no command is specified is
80 specified.
81
82
83 In this mode, __showkey__ prints to the standard output
84 the keycode number or each key pressed or released. The kind
85 of the event, press or release, is also reported. Keycodes
86 are numbers assigned by the kernel to each individual
87 physical key. Every key has always only one associated
88 keycode number, whether the keyboard sends single or
89 multiple scan codes when pressing it. Using __showkey__
90 in this mode, you can find out what numbers to use in your
91 personalized keymap files.
92
93
94 ''-m --keymap''
95
96
97 Starts __showkey__ in keycode dump mode.
98
99
100 In this mode, __showkey__ displays the characters as they
101 are translated by the kernel using the current keymap. It
102 may be useful to writers of install programs, to allow the
103 user to test a new keyboard before really installing
104 it.
105 !!OPTIONS
106
107
108 ''-t N --timeout=N''
109
110
111 This option changes the timeout (in seconds) from its
112 default of 10s.
113 !!AUTHOR
114
115
116 __showkey__ was developped by Risto Kankkunen for
117 kbd-0.81.
118
119
120 It was later extended by Yann Dirson
121 --keymap''
122 command and the ''--timeout'' option.
123 !!BUGS
124
125
126 The ''--keymap'' mode should report action keys by
127 displaying what action should be performed, instead of
128 executing the action.
129 !!SEE ALSO
130
131
132 loadkeys(1), dumpkeys(1),
133 keymaps(5).
134 ----
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