DUMPKEYS(1) General Commands Manual DUMPKEYS(1)
NAME
dumpkeys - dump keyboard translation tables
SYNOPSIS
dumpkeys [ -hilfn -ccharset --help --short-info --long-info --numeric --full-table --funcs-only --keys-only
--compose-only --charset=charset ]
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 ker‐
nel 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). 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 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 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 sequences. However, you can redefine these to send com‐
mon 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
with the symbols' numeric values.
-n --numeric
This option causes dumpkeys to by-pass the conversion of action code values to symbolic 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 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.
-1 --separate-lines
This forces dumpkeys to write one line per (modifier,keycode) pair. It prefixes the word plain for
plain keycodes.
--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.
--keys-only
When this option is given, dumpkeys prints only the key bindings. Normally dumpkeys prints both the key
bindings and the string definitions.
--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 inter‐
pret the keymap. (For example, "division" is 0xf7 in iso-8859-1 but 0xba in iso-8859-8.)
FILES
/lib/kbd/keymaps recommended directory for keytable files
SEE ALSO
loadkeys(1), keymaps(5)
1 Sep 1993 DUMPKEYS(1)
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