Xlib Reference Manual for Version 11 of the X Window System

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Keysyms

This appendix provides a list of keysyms and a brief description of each keysym. Keysyms, as you may remember, are the portable representation of the symbols on the caps of keys.

The normal way to process a keyboard event is to use XLookupKeysym to determine the keysym or, if the application allows remapping of keys to strings, it may use XLookupString to get the ASCII string mapped to the key or keys pressed. This allows the application to treat keys in a simple and portable manner, and places the responsibility of tailoring the mapping between keys and keysyms on the server vendor.*

Many keysyms do not have obvious counterparts on the keyboard, but may be generated with certain key combinations. You will need a table for each particular model of hardware you intend the program to work on, to tell you what key combination results in each keysym that is not present on the caps of the keyboard. For real portability, you will want to use only the keysyms that are supported on all vendors equipment you intend the program to be displayed on.

The keysyms are defined in two standard include files: <X11/keysym.h> and <X11/keysymdef.h>. There are several families of keysyms defined in <X11/keysymdef.h>; LATIN1, LATIN2, LATIN3, LATIN4, KATAKANA, ARABIC, CYRILLIC, GREEK, TECHNICAL, SPECIAL, PUBLISHING, APL, HEBREW, and MISCELLANY. The <X11/keysym.h> file specifies which families are enabled. Only the LATIN1, LATIN2, LATIN3, LATIN4, GREEK, and MISCELLANY families are enabled in ...