.TH SHOWKEY 1 "09 Oct 1997" "Console tools" "Linux User's Manual"

.SH NAME
showkey \- examine the scan codes and keycodes sent by the keyboard

.SH SYNOPSIS
.BI "showkey [ -[" hVskm "] | " --help " | " --version " | " --scancodes
.BI "| " --keycodes " | " --keymap " ] [ " -t " N | " --timeout= "N ]"
.IX "showkey command" "" "\fLshowkey\fR command"  

.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
.B 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
.I --timeout
or 
.I -t
option) has elapsed since the last key press or release event, or until it
receives a suitable signal, like SIGTERM, from another process.

.B showkey
has three modes of operation, scancode dumping, keycode dumping, and keymap
testing, selected by a command line option (see below).

.SH COMMANDS
.TP
.I \-h \-\-help
.B showkey
prints to the standard error output its version number, a short usage
message, then exits.
.TP
.I \-V \-\-version
.B showkey
prints to the standard error output its version number, then exits.
.TP
.I \-s \-\-scancodes
Starts
.B showkey
in scan code dump mode.

In this mode,
.B 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.
.TP
.I \-k \-\-keycodes
Starts
.B showkey
in keycode dump mode. This is the default, when no command is specified is
specified.

In this mode,
.B 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
.B showkey
in this mode, you can find out what numbers to use in your personalized
keymap files.
.TP
.I \-m \-\-keymap
Starts
.B showkey
in keycode dump mode.

In this mode,
.B 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.

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

.SH AUTHOR
.B showkey
was developped by Risto Kankkunen for kbd-0.81.
.PP
It was later extended by Yann Dirson <dirson@debian.org> to support the
.I --keymap
command and the
.I --timeout
option.

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

.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR loadkeys (1),
.BR dumpkeys (1),
.BR keymaps (5).