showkey

SHOWKEY(1)							   SHOWKEY(1)



NAME
       showkey - examine the codes sent by the keyboard

SYNOPSIS
       showkey [-h|--help] [-a|--ascii] [-s|--scancodes] [-k|--keycodes]

DESCRIPTION
       showkey prints to standard output either the scan codes or the keycode
       or the ‘ascii’ code of each key pressed.	 In the first two  modes  the
       program runs until 10 seconds have elapsed since the last key press or
       release event, or until it receives a suitable signal,  like  SIGTERM,
       from another process.  In ‘ascii’ mode the program terminates when the
       user types ^D.

       When in scancode dump 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  inter-
       faces.  As  such	 it shouldn’t be of much interest to the regular end-
       user. However, some modern keyboards have keys or buttons that produce
       scancodes to which the kernel does not associate a keycode, and, after
       finding out what these are, the user can assign keycodes with  setkey-
       codes(8).

       When  in the default keycode dump 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.

       When in ‘ascii’ dump mode, showkey prints to the standard  output  the
       decimal, octal, and hexadecimal value(s) of the key pressed, according
       to he present keymap.

OPTIONS
       -h --help
	      showkey prints to the standard error output its version number,
	      a compile option and a short usage message, then exits.

       -s --scancodes
	      Starts showkey in scan code dump mode.

       -k --keycodes
	      Starts  showkey in keycode dump mode. This is the default, when
	      no command line options are present.

       -a --ascii
	      Starts showkey in ‘ascii’ dump mode.

SEE ALSO
       loadkeys(1), dumpkeys(1), keymaps(5), setkeycodes(8)



				  1 Feb 1998			   SHOWKEY(1)