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DUMPKEYS(1) General Commands Manual DUMPKEYS(1)

NAME
dumpkeys - dump keyboard translation tables

SYNOPSIS
dumpkeys [ -h --help -i --short-info -l -s --long-info -n --numeric -f --full-table -1 --sep‐‐
arate-lines -Sshape --shape=shape -t --funcs-only -k --keys-only -d --compose-only -ccharset
--charset=charset -v --verbose -V --version ]

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

-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.)

-v --verbose

-V --version
Prints version number and exits.

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