key(3)                          Allegro manual                          key(3)



NAME
       key - Array of flags indicating key state. Allegro game programming
       library.

SYNOPSIS
       #include <allegro.h>


       extern volatile char key[KEY_MAX];

DESCRIPTION
       Array of flags indicating the state of each key, ordered by scancode.
       Wherever possible these values will be updated asynchronously, but if
       keyboard_needs_poll() returns TRUE, you must manually call
       poll_keyboard() to update them with the current input state. The
       scancodes are defined in allegro/keyboard.h as a series of KEY_*
       constants (and are also listed below). For example, you could write:

          if (key[KEY_SPACE])
             printf("Space is pressed\n");

       Note that the array is supposed to represent which keys are physically
       held down and which keys are not, so it is semantically read-only.

       These are the keyboard scancodes:

          KEY_A ... KEY_Z,
          KEY_0 ... KEY_9,
          KEY_0_PAD ... KEY_9_PAD,
          KEY_F1 ... KEY_F12,

          KEY_ESC, KEY_TILDE, KEY_MINUS, KEY_EQUALS,
          KEY_BACKSPACE, KEY_TAB, KEY_OPENBRACE, KEY_CLOSEBRACE,
          KEY_ENTER, KEY_COLON, KEY_QUOTE, KEY_BACKSLASH,
          KEY_BACKSLASH2, KEY_COMMA, KEY_STOP, KEY_SLASH,
          KEY_SPACE,

          KEY_INSERT, KEY_DEL, KEY_HOME, KEY_END, KEY_PGUP,
          KEY_PGDN, KEY_LEFT, KEY_RIGHT, KEY_UP, KEY_DOWN,

          KEY_SLASH_PAD, KEY_ASTERISK, KEY_MINUS_PAD,
          KEY_PLUS_PAD, KEY_DEL_PAD, KEY_ENTER_PAD,

          KEY_PRTSCR, KEY_PAUSE,

          KEY_ABNT_C1, KEY_YEN, KEY_KANA, KEY_CONVERT, KEY_NOCONVERT,
          KEY_AT, KEY_CIRCUMFLEX, KEY_COLON2, KEY_KANJI,

          KEY_LSHIFT, KEY_RSHIFT,
          KEY_LCONTROL, KEY_RCONTROL,
          KEY_ALT, KEY_ALTGR,
          KEY_LWIN, KEY_RWIN, KEY_MENU,
          KEY_SCRLOCK, KEY_NUMLOCK, KEY_CAPSLOCK

          KEY_EQUALS_PAD, KEY_BACKQUOTE, KEY_SEMICOLON, KEY_COMMAND

       Finally, you may notice an `odd' behaviour of the KEY_PAUSE key. This
       key only generates an interrupt when it is pressed, not when it is
       released.  For this reason, Allegro pretends the pause key is a `state'
       key, which is the only way to make it usable.


SEE ALSO
       install_keyboard(3), poll_keyboard(3), key_shifts(3)



Allegro                          version 4.2.3                          key(3)
