NAME

Terminal::ReadKey - Read non-blocking key presses from the keyboard buffer.

SYNOPSIS

use Terminal::ReadKey;

react { whenever key-pressed() { .say } }

DESCRIPTION

Terminal::ReadKey makes it easy to get non-blocking key presses from the keyboard buffer, even multibyte, combination key presses.

USAGE

Terminal::ReadKey has a few options you can set to modify its behavior.

Defaults to cooked mode, where it returns a string containing the named key press. If you want the byte values instead, pass in the parameter :raw set to a truthy value. Raw mode returns a sequence of bytes decoded to an ASCII string. For printable characters it is effectively the same as cooked mode. For non-printables, (function keys, navigation keys, Alt, or Ctrl keys) it won't look like much.

When in cooked mode, if there is an unrecognized keypress, returns the byte string as a stringified list of ordinals.

By default, does not echo each keypress to STDOUT. If you would prefer it to, pass in the parameter :echo set to a truthy value.

use Terminal::ReadKey;

# cooked mode
react { whenever key-pressed() { .say } }

or

use Terminal::ReadKey;

# raw mode
react { whenever key-pressed( :raw ) { .ords.say } }

Also, selectively exports the cooked() routine if you want to convert raw output to cooked manually.

use Terminal::ReadKey :cooked;

my $fh = open( :a, 'key-cap.txt' ) or die $_;
react { whenever key-pressed( :raw, :echo ) { $fh.print( .&cooked ); $fh.flush } }

BUGS

Since Terminal::ReadKey interacts with the keyboard buffer rather than reading the keyboard directly, it has no way to differentiate different keypress sequences that result in the same keypress code(s) in the buffer. For instance, if it reads a "Ctrl PgUp", it has no way to tell which Ctrl key or which PgUp key may have been pressed, only that there was one of each pressed. Same with Shift, Enter, or any other key combination that may be entered in multiple ways.

That also means that it can be affected by the OS / window managers typing repeat setting. It doesn't see, and is not responding to the actual key press, rather the presence of key codes in the keyboard buffer.

All of the Ctrl plus an alphabetic key sequences return uppercase alphabetics, regardless of the case of the key pressed. Not really a bug, just the reality of the situation, something to be aware of. 'Ctrl a' and 'Ctrl A' keypresses both return the same key codes so both evaluate to 'Ctrl A'. There isn't any way to differentiate.

There are a few key combinations that I haven't yet been able to capture because something else grabs the key code before it can be processed.

Notably missing (or at least, unverified):

• Alt F1

• Alt F2

• Alt F3

• Alt Tab

• Ctrl C

• Ctrl Z

• Ctrl Insert

• Ctrl Shift |

• Shift PgUp

• Shift PgDn

• Shift Home

• Shift End

• Shift Insert

The key combination "Shift Insert" stuffs the keyboard buffer with whatever is in the cut/paste buffer rather than the actual key codes, so doesn't reliably return a repeatable keypress sequence (if the cut/paste buffer contents changes).

This was written and tested on a US English keyboard. Characters on non-US keyboards may not have correct "cooked" mode support.

AUTHOR

Based on Term::ReadKey by jkramer - github.com/jkramer/p6-Term-ReadKey

Modified to recognize multibyte (non-printable) key presses and support "cooked" mode by Stephen Schulze - aka thundergnat thundergnat@gmail.com

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright 2022 Stephen Schulze

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the Artistic License 2.0.