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keymaps(5) - phpMan
KEYMAPS(5) File Formats Manual KEYMAPS(5)
NAME
keymaps - keyboard table descriptions for loadkeys and dumpkeys
DESCRIPTION
These files are used by loadkeys(1) to modify the translation tables used by the kernel
keyboard driver and generated by dumpkeys(1) from those translation tables.
The format of these files is vaguely similar to the one accepted by xmodmap(1). The file
consists of charset or key or string definition lines interspersed with comments.
Comments are introduced with ! or # characters and continue to the end of the line. Any‐
thing following one of these characters on that line is ignored. Note that comments need
not begin from column one as with xmodmap(1).
The syntax of keymap files is line oriented; a complete definition must fit on a single
logical line. Logical lines can, however, be split into multiple physical lines by ending
each subline with the backslash character (\).
INCLUDE FILES
A keymap can include other keymaps using the syntax
include "pathname"
CHARSET DEFINITIONS
A character set definition line is of the form:
charset "iso-8859-x"
It defines how following keysyms are to be interpreted. For example, in iso-8859-1 the
symbol mu (or micro) has code 0265, while in iso-8859-7 the letter mu has code 0354.
COMPLETE KEYCODE DEFINITIONS
Each complete key definition line is of the form:
keycode keynumber = keysym keysym keysym...
keynumber is the internal identification number of the key, roughly equivalent to the scan
code of it. keynumber can be given in decimal, octal or hexadecimal notation. Octal is
denoted by a leading zero and hexadecimal by the prefix 0x.
Each of the keysyms represent keyboard actions, of which up to 256 can be bound to a sin‐
gle key. The actions available include outputting character codes or character sequences,
switching consoles or keymaps, booting the machine etc. (The complete list can be obtained
from dumpkeys(1) by saying dumpkeys -l .)
Each keysym may be prefixed by a '+' (plus sign), in wich case this keysym is treated as a
"letter" and therefore affected by the "CapsLock" the same way as by "Shift" (to be cor‐
rect, the CapsLock inverts the Shift state). The ASCII letters ('a'-'z' and 'A'-'Z') are
made CapsLock'able by default. If Shift+CapsLock should not produce a lower case symbol,
put lines like
keycode 30 = +a A
in the map file.
Which of the actions bound to a given key is taken when it is pressed depends on what mod‐
ifiers are in effect at that moment. The keyboard driver supports 9 modifiers. These mod‐
ifiers are labeled (completely arbitrarily) Shift, AltGr, Control, Alt, ShiftL, ShiftR,
CtrlL, CtrlR and CapsShift. Each of these modifiers has an associated weight of power of
two according to the following table:
modifier weight
Shift
1
AltGr
2
Control
4
Alt
8
ShiftL
16
ShiftR
32
CtrlL
64
CtrlR 128
CapsShift 256
The effective action of a key is found out by adding up the weights of all the modifiers
in effect. By default, no modifiers are in effect, so action number zero, i.e. the one in
the first column in a key definition line, is taken when the key is pressed or released.
When e.g. Shift and Alt modifiers are in effect, action number nine (from the 10th column)
is the effective one.
Changing the state of what modifiers are in effect can be achieved by binding appropriate
key actions to desired keys. For example, binding the symbol Shift to a key sets the Shift
modifier in effect when that key is pressed and cancels the effect of that modifier when
the key is released. Binding AltGr_Lock to a key sets AltGr in effect when the key is
pressed and cancels the effect when the key is pressed again. (By default Shift, AltGr,
Control and Alt are bound to the keys that bear a similar label; AltGr may denote the
right Alt key.)
Note that you should be very careful when binding the modifier keys, otherwise you can end
up with an unusable keyboard mapping. If you for example define a key to have Control in
its first column and leave the rest of the columns to be VoidSymbols, you're in trouble.
This is because pressing the key puts Control modifier in effect and the following actions
are looked up from the fifth column (see the table above). So, when you release the key,
the action from the fifth column is taken. It has VoidSymbol in it, so nothing happens.
This means that the Control modifier is still in effect, although you have released the
key. Re-pressing and releasing the key has no effect. To avoid this, you should always
define all the columns to have the same modifier symbol. There is a handy short-hand nota‐
tion for this, see below.
keysyms can be given in decimal, octal, hexadecimal, unicode or symbolic notation. The
numeric notations use the same format as with keynumber. Unicode notation is "U+" fol‐
lowed by four hexadecimal digits. The symbolic notation resembles that used by
xmodmap(1). Notable differences are the number symbols. The numeric symbols '0', ..., '9'
of xmodmap(1) are replaced with the corresponding words 'zero', 'one', ... 'nine' to avoid
confusion with the numeric notation.
It should be noted that using numeric notation for the keysyms is highly unportable as the
key action numbers may vary from one kernel version to another and the use of numeric
notations is thus strongly discouraged. They are intended to be used only when you know
there is a supported keyboard action in your kernel for which your current version of
loadkeys(1) has no symbolic name.
There is a number of short-hand notations to add readability and reduce typing work and
the probability of typing-errors.
First of all, you can give a map specification line, of the form
keymaps 0-2,4-5,8,12
to indicate that the lines of the keymap will not specify all 256 columns, but only the
indicated ones. (In the example: only the plain, Shift, AltGr, Control, Control+Shift, Alt
and Control+Alt maps, that is, 7 columns instead of 256.) When no such line is given, the
keymaps 0-M will be defined, where M+1 is the maximum number of entries found in any defi‐
nition line.
Next, you can leave off any trailing VoidSymbol entries from a key definition line.
VoidSymbol denotes a keyboard action which produces no output and has no other effects
either. For example, to define key number 30 to output 'a' unshifted, 'A' when pressed
with Shift and do nothing when pressed with AltGr or other modifiers, you can write
keycode 30 = a A
instead of the more verbose
keycode 30 = a A VoidSymbol VoidSymbol \
VoidSymbol VoidSymbol VoidSymbol ...
For added convenience, you can usually get off with still more terse definitions. If you
enter a key definition line with only and exactly one action code after the equals sign,
it has a special meaning. If the code (numeric or symbolic) is not an ASCII letter, it
means the code is implicitly replicated through all columns being defined. If, on the
other hand, the action code is an ASCII character in the range 'a', ..., 'z' or 'A', ...,
'Z' in the ASCII collating sequence, the following definitions are made for the different
modifier combinations, provided these are actually being defined. (The table lists the
two possible cases: either the single action code is a lower case letter, denoted by 'x'
or an upper case letter, denoted by 'Y'.)
modifier symbol
none x Y
Shift X y
AltGr x Y
Shift+AltGr X y
Control Control_x Control_y
Shift+Control Control_x Control_y
AltGr+Control Control_x Control_y
Shift+AltGr+Control Control_x Control_y
Alt Meta_x Meta_Y
Shift+Alt Meta_X Meta_y
AltGr+Alt Meta_x Meta_Y
Shift+AltGr+Alt Meta_X Meta_y
Control+Alt Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
Shift+Control+Alt Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
AltGr+Control+Alt Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
Shift+AltGr+Control+Alt Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
SINGLE MODIFIER DEFINITIONS
All the previous forms of key definition lines always define all the M+1 possible modifier
combinations being defined, whether the line actually contains that many action codes or
not. There is, however, a variation of the definition syntax for defining only single
actions to a particular modifier combination of a key. This is especially useful, if you
load a keymap which doesn't match your needs in only some modifier combinations, like
AltGr+function keys. You can then make a small local file redefining only those modifier
combinations and loading it after the main file. The syntax of this form is:
{ plain | <modifier sequence> } keycode keynumber = keysym
, e.g.,
plain keycode 14 = BackSpace
control alt keycode 83 = Boot
alt keycode 105 = Decr_Console
alt keycode 106 = Incr_Console
Using "plain" will define only the base entry of a key (i.e. the one with no modifiers in
effect) without affecting the bindings of other modifier combinations of that key.
STRING DEFINITIONS
In addition to comments and key definition lines, a keymap can contain string definitions.
These are used to define what each function key action code sends. The syntax of string
definitions is:
string keysym = "text"
text can contain literal characters, octal character codes in the format of backslash fol‐
lowed by up to three octal digits, and the three escape sequences \n, \\, and \", for new‐
line, backslash and quote, respectively.
COMPOSE DEFINITIONS
Then there may also be compose definitions. They have syntax
compose 'char' 'char' to 'char'
and describe how two bytes are combined to form a third one (when a dead accent or compose
key is used). This is used to get accented letters and the like on a standard keyboard.
ABBREVIATIONS
Various abbreviations can be used with kbd-0.96 and later.
strings as usual
Defines the usual values of the strings (but not the keys they are bound to).
compose as usual for "iso-8859-1"
Defines the usual compose combinations.
To find out what keysyms there are available for use in keymaps, use the command
dumpkeys --long-info
Unfortunately, there is currently no description of what each symbol does. It has to be
guessed from the name or figured out from the kernel sources.
EXAMPLES
(Be careful to use a keymaps line, like the first line of `dumpkeys`, or "keymaps 0-15" or
so.)
The following entry exchanges the left Control key and the Caps Lock key on the keyboard:
keycode 58 = Control
keycode 29 = Caps_Lock
Key number 58 is normally the Caps Lock key, and key number 29 is normally the Control
key.
The following entry sets the Shift and Caps Lock keys to behave more nicely, like in older
typewriters. That is, pressing Caps Lock key once or more sets the keyboard in CapsLock
state and pressing either of the Shift keys releases it.
keycode 42 = Uncaps_Shift
keycode 54 = Uncaps_Shift
keycode 58 = Caps_On
The following entry sets the layout of the edit pad in the enhanced keyboard to be more
like that in the VT200 series terminals:
keycode 102 = Insert
keycode 104 = Remove
keycode 107 = Prior
shift keycode 107 = Scroll_Backward
keycode 110 = Find
keycode 111 = Select
control alt keycode 111 = Boot
control altgr keycode 111 = Boot
Here's an example to bind the string "du\ndf\n" to the key AltGr-D. We use the "spare"
action code F100 not normally bound to any key.
altgr keycode 32 = F100
string F100 = "du\ndf\n"
SEE ALSO
loadkeys(1), dumpkeys(1), showkey(1), xmodmap(1)
24 April 1998 KEYMAPS(5)
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