C++ console keyboard events

Question

Is there any way to get key events in a Windows console? I need a way to get keydown and keyup events quickly without a GUI. I've tried using getch(), but it doesn't get keyups and waits until a key has been pressed to return.

Answer 1

You can use GetKeyState or GetAsyncKeyState, but that won't give you keydown/keyup events. It will only tell you what keys are currently down.

So if you really need to get the keydown/keyup events, you could install a hook. A Console window has a window handle that is owned by code in Windows and a message pump, also owned by code in Windows.

You can get the window handle of of the console window by using GetConsoleWindowThen install a WH_CALLWNDPROC hook using SetWindowsHookEx to listen in on messages send to the console window.

You might try a WH_MSGFILTER hook instead. I don't know if this works for console windows, but it would generate less messages to be ignored if it does work.

Answer 2

Use ReadConsoleInput() API. Watch for events of kind KEY_EVENT. This won't work for all keydown events (Ctrl-key, shift-key, Pause-key cannot be read), but most can be read.

Use GetNumberOfConsoleInputEvents to avoid blocking.

Answer 3

I was just curious, how comes such a logical question doesn't have any explanation on Google, So one has to ask it here. So I googled for: "keyboard events console application" and guess what ... first 2 links are interesting (but unfortunately, not exactly answers to your question):

• Processing mouse / keyboard input on MSDN.
• Console event handlers (like Ctrl-C and window close button).

Answer 4

There are a number of ways. GetKeyboardState would be one of the most obvious.

Answer 5

You can also try SetConsoleCtrlHandler