Default Keyboard Device Access

Question

I have a small C program that checks if a key is being held. Right now it works like a charm, but gets access to the keyboard device via /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-0-event-kbd . I know that /dev/input/by-path/*-kbd will contain keyborads, but I do not know how to open a file with this name.

The idea is that I want it to be portable. Therefore, if the program runs on another computer, it still works. I'm not interested in getting multiple keyboards (does anyone use this setting?)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Perhaps you can use / proc, namely / proc / bus / input / devices to get a list of available keyboard devices. This is a list of devices with a “keyboard” in their names taken from my laptop (I have a USB keyboard connected, so the answer to your second question is “yes”):

 I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=ab54 N: Name="AT Translated Set 2 keyboard" P: Phys=isa0060/serio0/input0 S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input0 U: Uniq= H: Handlers=sysrq kbd event0 B: EV=120013 B: KEY=4 2000000 3803078 f800d001 feffffdf ffefffff ffffffff fffffffe B: MSC=10 B: LED=7 I: Bus=0003 Vendor=04d9 Product=1603 Version=0110 N: Name=" USB Keyboard" P: Phys=usb-0000:00:1d.0-2/input0 S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb5/5-2/5-2:1.0/input/input5 U: Uniq= H: Handlers=sysrq kbd event5 B: EV=120013 B: KEY=10000 7 ff800000 7ff febeffdf f3cfffff ffffffff fffffffe B: MSC=10 B: LED=7 I: Bus=0003 Vendor=04d9 Product=1603 Version=0110 N: Name=" USB Keyboard" P: Phys=usb-0000:00:1d.0-2/input1 S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb5/5-2/5-2:1.1/input/input6 U: Uniq= H: Handlers=kbd event6 B: EV=13 B: KEY=2000000 39fa d941d001 1e0000 0 0 0 B: MSC=10 I: Bus=0003 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0004 N: Name="ACPI Virtual Keyboard Device" P: Phys= S: Sysfs=/devices/virtual/input/input14 U: Uniq= H: Handlers=sysrq kbd event14 rfkill B: EV=3 B: KEY=ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff fffffffe