Manual: dumpkeys

DUMPKEYS(1) General Commands Manual DUMPKEYS(1)

NAME
dumpkeys - dump keyboard translation tables

SYNOPSIS
dumpkeys [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION
dumpkeys writes, to the standard output, the current contents of the keyboard driver's translation
tables, in the format specified by keymaps(5).

Using the various options, the format of the output can be controlled and also other information from
the kernel and the programs dumpkeys(1) and loadkeys(1) can be obtained.

OPTIONS
-h --help
Prints the program's version number and a short usage message to the program's standard error
output and exits.

-i --short-info
Prints some characteristics of the kernel's keyboard driver. The items shown are:

Keycode range supported by the kernel

This tells what values can be used after the keycode keyword in keytable files. See
keymaps(5) for more information and the syntax of these files.

Number of actions bindable to a key

This tells how many different actions a single key can output using various modifier
keys. If the value is 16 for example, you can define up to 16 different actions to a
key combined with modifiers. When the value is 16, the kernel probably knows about four
modifier keys, which you can press in different combinations with the key to access all
the bound actions.

Ranges of action codes supported by the kernel

This item contains a list of action code ranges in hexadecimal notation. These are the
values that can be used in the right hand side of a key definition, ie. the vv's in a
line

keycode xx = vv vv vv vv

(see keymaps(5) for more information about the format of key definition lines). dump‐
keys(1) and loadkeys(1) support a symbolic notation, which is preferable to the numeric
one, as the action codes may vary from kernel to kernel while the symbolic names usu‐
ally remain the same. However, the list of action code ranges can be used to determine,
if the kernel actually supports all the symbols loadkeys(1) knows, or are there maybe
some actions supported by the kernel that have no symbolic name in your loadkeys(1)
program. To see this, you compare the range list with the action symbol list, see op‐
tion --long-info below.

Number of function keys supported by kernel

This tells the number of action codes that can be used to output strings of characters.
These action codes are traditionally bound to the various function and editing keys of
the keyboard and are defined to send standard escape sequences. However, you can rede‐
fine these to send common command lines, email addresses or whatever you like. Espe‐
cially if the number of this item is greater than the number of function and editing
keys in your keyboard, you may have some "spare" action codes that you can bind to
AltGr-letter combinations, for example, to send some useful strings. See loadkeys(1)
for more details.

Function strings

You can see you current function key definitions with the command

dumpkeys --funcs-only

-l -s --long-info
This option instructs dumpkeys to print a long information listing. The output is the same as
with the --short-info appended with the list of action symbols supported by loadkeys(1) and
dumpkeys(1), along with the symbols' numeric values.

-n --numeric
This option causes dumpkeys to by-pass the conversion of action code values to symbolic nota‐
tion and to print the in hexadecimal format instead.

-f --full-table
This makes dumpkeys skip all the short-hand heuristics (see keymaps(5)) and output the key
bindings in the canonical form. First a keymaps line describing the currently defined modifier
combinations is printed. Then for each key a row with a column for each modifier combination
is printed. For example, if the current keymap in use uses seven modifiers, every row will
have seven action code columns. This format can be useful for example to programs that post-
process the output of dumpkeys.

-Sshape --shape=shape
Available shapes:

2 default output.

4 one line for each keycode.

8 one line for each (modifier,keycode) pair.

16 one line for each keycode until 1st hole.

-1 --separate-lines
This forces dumpkeys to write one line per (modifier,keycode) pair. It prefixes the word plain
for plain keycodes.

-t --funcs-only
When this option is given, dumpkeys prints only the function key string definitions. Normally
dumpkeys prints both the key bindings and the string definitions.

-k --keys-only
When this option is given, dumpkeys prints only the key bindings. Normally dumpkeys prints
both the key bindings and the string definitions.

-d --compose-only
When this option is given, dumpkeys prints only the compose key combinations. This option is
available only if your kernel has compose key support.

-ccharset --charset=charset
This instructs dumpkeys to interpret character code values according to the specified charac‐
ter set. This affects only the translation of character code values to symbolic names. Valid
values for charset currently are iso-8859-X, Where X is a digit in 1-9. If no charset is
specified, iso-8859-1 is used as a default. This option produces an output line `charset
"iso-8859-X"', telling loadkeys how to interpret the keymap. (For example, "division" is 0xf7
in iso-8859-1 but 0xba in iso-8859-8.)

-Cdev --console=dev
The affected console device can be specified using the -C (or --console ) option. This option
supports exactly one device name.

-v --verbose
Turn on verbose output.

-V --version
Prints version number and exits.

FILES
/usr/share/keymaps
The recommended directory for keytable files.

Manual: dumpkeys

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