Keyboard Buffer Insertion

[Jamdog]

I've been asked (by my brother) to create a program which will insert a specific key combination into the keyboard buffer at specific intervals until the Esc key is pressed.

Does anyone know how to insert a 'keypress' into the keyboard buffer, as this is what I'm having difficulty with.

Thanks in advance...

[laserlight]

Why do you (or perhaps your brother) want to do this?

[Jamdog]

It's to control another program. The other program requires him to press a key repeatedly, and he is looking for a way of doing this that doesn't require him to sit at his keyboard.

There are lots of keypress and mouse-click programs available on the internet, but these are often designed for cheating in browser-based games, and often contain malware. He was hoping that I'd be able to create a bespoke program for him that does a similar thing, but that he knows he can trust (as I'll also give him the source code).

[bithub]

AutoHotKey is a program that does what you're looking for. Since it's open source, your brother can trust (or verify) that it doesn't contain malware.

[Jamdog]

Thanks bithub, I've passed the link on to my brother.

I'm still interested in creating a simple bespoke version for him, and have thrown together some basic functions. Please note that this is currently untested mailer code right off the top of my head, so may not compile cleanly.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <dos.h>

typedef union _Keypress
{
	int iKeyCode;
	char ch[2];
} KEY;

#define KEYBOARD    0x16
#define KEYCODE     iKeyCode
#define SCANCODE    ch[1]
#define ASCIICODE   ch[0]

#define NO_KEY         0
#define ESCAPE_KEY     1

int insert_keypress(KEY k)
{
  union REGS sreg,dreg;

  sreg.h.ah = 5;           /* Set 'Store' Function */
  sreg.h.ch = k.SCANCODE;  /* Set Key Scancode     */
  sreg.h.cl = k.ASCIICODE; /* Set Key ASCII Code   */
  
  int86(KEYBOARD, &sreg, &dreg);
  
  return ( dreg.h.al );  /* Success (1) or Fail (0) */

}

int get_keypress(void)
{
  KEY symKey;
  union REGS sreg,dreg;

  sreg.h.ah = 0;           /* Set 'Get' Function */
  
  int86(KEYBOARD, &sreg, &dreg);

  k.SCANCODE  = dreg.h.ah; /* Get Key Scancode     */
  k.ASCIICODE = dreg.h.al; /* Get Key ASCII Code   */
  
  return k.KEYCODE;
}

int check_keypress(void)
{
  KEY k;
  union REGS sreg,dreg;

  sreg.h.ah = 0;           /* Set 'Check' Function */
  
  int86(KEYBOARD, &sreg, &dreg);

  /* Check the zflag (0=nothing in queue, 1=key pressed) */
  if ( regs.x.cflags & 0x0040 ) {
    k.KEYCODE   = 0;         /* Nothing in queue     */
  } else {
    k.SCANCODE  = dreg.h.ah; /* Get Key Scancode     */
    k.ASCIICODE = dreg.h.al; /* Get Key ASCII Code   */
  }
  return k.KEYCODE;
}

void flush_kb_buffer(void)
{
  KEY symKey;
  while (check_keypress()) {
    symKey.KEYCODE = get_keypress();
  }
}

void main(void)
{
  KEY k, temp, ;

  flush_kb_buffer();
  
  printf("Enter key to repeat:");

  k.KEYCODE = get_keypress();
  
  while (k.SCANCODE != ESCAPE_KEY) {
    if ((temp = check_keypress()) == 0) {
      /* Nothing in buffer queue, put something in */
      printf("Inserting Keypress\r\n");
      insert_keypress(k);
    } else {
      /* We have something in the buffer, grab it */
      k.KEYCODE = get_keypress();
    }
  }

  printf("Goodbye!\r\n");
}

You will also notice that I'm using the INT16h DOS interrupt, and function 05h to insert the keypress. Apparently this worked on some, but not all old PC's, and probably won't work on modern ones. Does anyone know another approach I can use.

The get_keypress and check_keypress functions I wrote above should work exactly like the old obsolete bioskey(0) and bioskey(1) functions if you wanted to look them up. These should be compatible with modern Windows-based PC's.

[bithub]

Anytime you see "#include <dos.h>", it's probably a good sign that it won't work on a modern PC. You should be using the Win32 API instead.

If I remember correctly, you need to call SendMessage() to send the WM_KEYDOWN message to the window that is receiving the keyboard input.