Man Showkey en anglais
SHOWKEY(1)                    Linux User's Manual                   SHOWKEY(1)



 

NAME


       showkey - examine the scan codes and keycodes sent by the keyboard


 

SYNOPSIS


       showkey  [  -[hVskm]  | --help | --version | --scancodes | --keycodes |
       --keymap ] [ -t N | --timeout=N ]


 

DESCRIPTION






       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  dump-
       ing, and keymap testing, selected by a command line option (see below).


 

COMMANDS


       -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 dump-
              ing 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 trans-
              lated  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.


 

OPTIONS


       -t N --timeout=N
              This option changes the timeout (in seconds) from its default of
              10s.


 

AUTHOR


       showkey was developed by Risto Kankkunen for kbd-0.81.

       It was later extended by Yann Dirson  to support the
       --keymap command and the --timeout option.


 

BUGS


       The  --keymap  mode should report action keys by displaying what action
       should be performed, instead of executing the action.


 

SEE ALSO


       loadkeys(1), dumpkeys(1), keymaps(5), setkeycodes(8).



Console tools                     09 Oct 1997                       SHOWKEY(1)