getkey (1) - Linux Manuals

getkey: wait until a key is pressed

NAME

getkey - wait until a key is pressed

SYNOPSIS

getkey [OPTION]... [KEYS]

DESCRIPTION

getkey waits until one of KEYS is pressed. If KEYS are not specified, any key is accepted. KEYS are matched case-insensitive.

EXIT STATUS

getkey exits with status 0 if one of the expected keys is pressed. If invalid arguments are specified, getkey exits with status 255. If getkey is interrupted or the wait times out, getkey exits with other non-zero status.

OPTIONS

-c, --wait SECONDS

Wait only for SECONDS seconds. The default is 0, which means to wait without a time limit.

-i, --ignore-control-chars

Don't treat Ctrl+C and Ctrl+D specially. When this option is not specified, these characters interrupt getkey.

-m, --message MESSAGE

Display MESSAGE while waiting. The message is used as a format string in sprintf(3), with a single argument, the number of seconds left. Typical usage is therefore "Press a key within %d seconds to ...". If MESSAGE contains other format string directives, the behavior is undefined and getkey may crash.

If there is no time limit specified, the number of seconds left is reported as 0.