I'm trying to inject keystrokes into the input daemon so as to simulate typing from a Bash script. Is this possible, and if so, how can I make it happen?
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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asked Jun 12, 2011 at 22:21
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Do you want to simulate input at the kernel level (if so, on what OS), at the X level, in a terminal?– Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'Jun 12, 2011 at 22:26
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At the kernel level, I'd like it to essentially appear as if I hit an actual key on an actual keyboard.– Naftuli KayJun 12, 2011 at 22:30
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@TKKocheran: So, under AIX? FreeBSD? Linux? OSX? … The answer is highly likely to be completely different on each variant.– Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'Jun 12, 2011 at 23:01
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1What do you need that for?– starblueJun 13, 2011 at 8:38
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3Perhaps I'd like to write a script that randomly inserts keypresses at random intervals.– Naftuli KayJun 13, 2011 at 17:50
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4 Answers
Use the uinput driver. I don't think there's a utility for that; you're going to have to write or adapt a bit of C code. In a nutshell:
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <ioctl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <linux/input.h>
#include <linux/uinput.h>
/* Set up a fake keyboard device */
fd = open("/dev/uinput", O_WRONLY | O_NONBLOCK); // or /dev/input/uinput
ioctl(fd, UI_SET_EVBIT, EV_KEY);
struct uinput_user_dev uidev = …;
write(fd, &uidev, sizeof(uidev));
ioctl(fd, UI_DEV_CREATE);
/* Send an event */
struct input_event ev = …;
write(fd, &ev, sizeof(ev));
/* Clean up */
ioctl(fd, UI_DEV_DESTROY);
close(fd);
More complete references:
answered Jun 13, 2011 at 0:08
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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The link to einfochips.com was broken. I replaced it with a snapshot from archive.org. Mar 25, 2014 at 6:21
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do you think this could help on solving this question? unix.stackexchange.com/questions/156985/…, I thought, when I press a key, this program would send another key that the problematic application actually recognizes (even if at the same time)? Sep 25, 2014 at 0:07
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Thiemonge's sample code for creating and moving around a mouse works, can't figure out how to make keystrokes from it though even if it supposedly teaches that. Mar 1, 2016 at 18:13
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@Cestarian This sounds like a question for Stack Overflow. Post your code, explain what you expected and what you see instead, and provide any relevant error messages, log entries etc. Mar 1, 2016 at 18:38
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@Gilles well I'd love to, but it says i've reached my question limit... For getting too many downvotes on 2 questions I asked a while back; and probably some more on much older questions I deleted. Hell, I don't even know why I got so many downvotes here stackoverflow.com/questions/20619023/… (got a pretty good answer though), was it because I didn't post the error I was receiving maybe? Anyhow, off topic. Basically I would but can't. :( Mar 1, 2016 at 19:20
If you are operating at the X level (as in Gilles' question), then use xdotool like so:
xdotool key KEYSTROKE_SPECIFIER
Where KEYSTROKE_SPECIFIER can be something like "a" or "F2" or "control+j"
EDIT: I missed your response to Gilles' question, sorry. I'll leave this response here as a solution for the X-case.
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3
If you're NOT working with X programs with windows that can be sent keys, you are probably looking for expect, a handy and very configurable program for running other interactive shell programs as if a user were controlling the terminal. You can setup programatic responses to respond to various output with different inputs.
I wrote some Python code that does that. You can find it in my open source project.
http://code.google.com/p/pycopia/source/browse/trunk/core/pycopia/OS/Linux/event.py
If you run that module as a script as root you can see a demo in action.
This basic functionality was extended for another project, powerdroid, that provides more concrete implementation for an embedded system (Android).
http://code.google.com/p/powerdroid/source/browse/trunk/src/droid/devices.py
