Question

ASCII codes for special keys

Asked by: EatEmAndSmile

Hi! I need the codes for the keys "End" and "PageDown". They're not on the ASCII table. When I type "man ascii" they're not mentioned on the list.

I need to treat these keys and I don't know how to treat special keys.

Thanks.

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Asked On
1999-10-06 at 06:03:41ID10215697
Tags

special

Topic

C Programming Language

Participating Experts
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Answers

 

by: fveilletPosted on 1999-10-06 at 06:42:53ID: 2103278

If you're using a VT220 terminal emulator or the like, these keys are Control Sequences.  The usually are a combinaison of the Escape keyes followed by several other keys.

You can easily find descriptions of these key sequences in VT220 documentation for programmers.

Also an easy way to find a sequence is with the "cat" command.  Like this:

$ cat >seq
<Type the key>
<CTRL-D>

$ vi seq

Now you should see the complete key sequence.  As I said, usually starting with Escape key, displayed as ^[

Hope this helps.

 

by: imladrisPosted on 1999-10-06 at 07:43:29ID: 2103518

Please specify machine and operating system.

 

by: roaknogPosted on 1999-10-06 at 07:49:30ID: 2103542

End = 4F hex = 79 decimal
PgDn = 51 hex = 81 decimal

 

by: roaknogPosted on 1999-10-06 at 07:54:23ID: 2103555

Grey keys are different
Grey End = 0E0h 4Fh
Grey Page Down = 0E0h 51h

 

by: sburckPosted on 1999-10-06 at 08:49:51ID: 2103736

The reason they're not in an ASCII table, is that they're not ASCII keys.  Imladris is right - it's a system dependant thing.  On most machines a two-key code is generated, this is shown in fviellet's answer for a Unix terminal.  On most PCs the BIOS will generate a 0 for what are known as the 'extended' ASCII keys, as a flag showing that there will be another byte, and then the values for the extended keys.

 

by: EatEmAndSmilePosted on 1999-10-06 at 10:15:01ID: 2104015

fveillet: Linux - i386

roaknog: Thanks. You got exactly what I wanted.

sburck: I've heard about the 0 thing. So what would it look like? What do I put after the 0? Like 079 for End and 081 for PgDw?

 

by: DVBPosted on 1999-10-06 at 11:30:33ID: 2104237

Well you add 256 to the keycode. It works somewhat like this:
The keyboard returns a 16 bit string, of which one byte is your ascii code. The zero is merely because this information is in the other byte.
So you read in two chars, if the first is zero check keycode of second, else first is desired key. I did this on dos.
Else you can read in the full int value and decide.
end = 256 + 79 = 335, and so on.

 

by: EatEmAndSmilePosted on 1999-10-06 at 12:22:20ID: 2104401

This is getting interesting as it goes... Thank you, DVB. I'll try it tonight and then feed back you all.

I'm a C programmer, but the reason why I'm so interested in these codes right now is that DOOM for Linux uses a file called

~/.doomrc

for it's configuration. I have to supply the keycodes in ASCII on this file to map the keyboard.

If this doesn't work now, I'll try to find a DOS/Windows machine to install DOOM and run the "SETUP.EXE" application, that is much more friendly and writes a configuration file, I believe it's 'default.cfg'. It's the equal to the '~/.doomrc' file.

 

by: nadtPosted on 1999-10-09 at 05:36:59ID: 2112579

try this program this works!!!
int readkey(int *is_function_key)
{
 int c;
 
 *is_function_key=0;   //assume normal key is  pressed    
  c=getch();           // no echo on the screen
  if (c==0)
  {
     c=getch();            //the ascii code of the key
     *is_function_key=1;   //yes! this looks suspicious
  }
  return(c);
}

write this funtion in your main program and call it as follows
    c=readkey(&is_pgdn);
compare c with the ascii values of the pgdn (they are already given by others!! so no need to repeat)  and is_pgdn with `1'.  you're on!!!

 

by: EatEmAndSmilePosted on 1999-10-11 at 03:38:01ID: 2115836

I won't be able to evaluate this solution now. I've changed my on-board SiS 5598 for a Trident 9680 and my DOOM stopped working. It's strange, as Quake continued to work. DOOM now has a crappy screen and when I leave it, the console is trashed, filled with error colorful characters. I can't even restore it with the 'reset' command. Fortunatelly I've mapped CTRL+ALT+DEL to 'shutdown -h now', so I can make a clean exit in the system.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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