How to find character sequence (or keycodes)

Fixit7 · 08-27-2015, 10:06 AM

I want to be able to assign a text string to a key combination.

Ctrl-v does not show the character sequence, it pops up the menu.

How can I see the character sequences?

Quote:

You can determine the character sequence emitted by a key by pressing Ctrl-v at the command line, then pressing the key you're interested in. On my system for F12, I get ^[[24~. The ^[ represents Esc. Different types of terminals or terminal emulators can emit different codes for the same key.

At a Bash prompt you can enter a command like this to enable the key macro so you can try it out.

bind '"\e[24~":"foobar"'

Now, when you press F12, you'll get "foobar" on the command line ready for further editing. If you wanted a keystroke to enter a command immediately, you can add a newline:

bind '"\e[24~":"pwd\n"'

dewelker · 08-27-2015, 12:42 PM

More information is necessary regarding what environment you are using. The control-v technique as well as the bind commands work for me, but that is while using Putty to access a Linux system running RHEL 4 - 6 in a bash shell.

Fixit7 · 08-27-2015, 01:26 PM

What specific info about my environment do you need ?

I would think key scan codes would be the same no matter what distro is being used.

frankbell · 08-27-2015, 09:05 PM

If you are looking to see the output of keypress, you could try xev if X is running, though its output can be kind of overwhelming.

There's also showkey.

Fixit7 · 08-28-2015, 09:50 AM

I used xev, but can not figure out how to use bind with the scan codes I got.

frankbell · 08-28-2015, 08:25 PM

All I've ever used xev for was to identify a key so I could configure a keybinding in Fluxbox. I managed to do it, but xev's output is rather overwhelming. I'm afraid I've reached the linit of my experience with this one.