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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 trans‐
       lation tables, in the format specified by keymaps(5).

       Using the various options, the format of the output can be controlled and also other informa‐
       tion 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 stan‐
              dard 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 differ‐
                     ent 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 com‐
                     binations 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).
                     dumpkeys(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 usually remain the same. However, the list of action code ranges
                     can be used to determine, if the kernel actually supports all the symbols load‐
                     keys(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 option --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  se‐
                     quences.  However,  you  can redefine these to send common command lines, email
                     addresses or whatever you like.  Especially 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 sym‐
              bolic notation 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  de‐
              fined 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
              character 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.

SEE ALSO
       loadkeys(1), keymaps(5)


kbd                                          1 Sep 1993                                  DUMPKEYS(1)