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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 <dirson@debian.org> 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)
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