showkey - examine the scan codes and keycodes sent by the keyboard
showkey [ -[hVskm] | --help | --version | --scancodes | --keycodes |
--keymap ] [ -t N | --timeout=N ]
showkey prints to standard output either the scan codes, the keycode,
or the character of each key pressed/released. The program runs until
10 seconds (or the amount of time specified by the --timeout or -t
option) has elapsed since the last key press or release event, or until
it receives a suitable signal, like SIGTERM, from another process.
showkey has three modes of operation, scancode dumping, keycode dumping,
and keymap testing, selected by a command line option (see below).
-h --help
showkey prints to the standard error output its version number,
a short usage message, then exits.
-V --version
showkey prints to the standard error output its version number,
then exits.
-s --scancodes
Starts showkey in scan code dump mode.
In this mode, showkey prints in hexadecimal format each byte
received from the keyboard to the standard output. A new line is
printed when an interval of about 0.1 seconds occurs between the
bytes received, or when the internal receive buffer fills up.
This can be used to determine roughly, what byte sequences the
keyboard sends at once on a given key press. The scan code dumping
mode is primarily intended for debugging the keyboard driver
or other low level interfaces. As such it shouldn't be of much
interest to the regular end-user.
-k --keycodes
Starts showkey in keycode dump mode. This is the default, when
no command is specified is specified.
In this mode, showkey prints to the standard output the keycode
number or each key pressed or released. The kind of the event,
press or release, is also reported. Keycodes are numbers
assigned by the kernel to each individual physical key. Every
key has always only one associated keycode number, whether the
keyboard sends single or multiple scan codes when pressing it.
Using showkey in this mode, you can find out what numbers to use
in your personalized keymap files.
-m --keymap
Starts showkey in keycode dump mode.
In this mode, showkey displays the characters as they are translated
by the kernel using the current keymap. It may be useful
to writers of install programs, to allow the user to test a new
keyboard before really installing it.
-t N --timeout=N
This option changes the timeout (in seconds) from its default of
10s.
showkey was developped by Risto Kankkunen for kbd-0.81.
It was later extended by Yann Dirson <dirson@debian.org> to support the
--keymap command and the --timeout option.
The --keymap mode should report action keys by displaying what action
should be performed, instead of executing the action.
loadkeys(1), dumpkeys(1), keymaps(5).
Console tools 09 Oct 1997 SHOWKEY(1)
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