Send keystrokes from a C(++) program to a GUI app ?

Can't you look in the source for those programs ? That would give you a clue?

I've done something similar when I needed to pass single keystrokes into a Java program: Java won't read keystrokes from a Linux terminal application, only a LF-terminated string.

So, I wrote a small C program that tweaked stdin to accept individual keystrokes and passed them, one by one, to the Java app over a socket connection. My application echoes received characters back to the keyreader as a primative form of flow control. The only critical thing with this approach is that the consuming program needs to be up and expecting a connection before the key reader is launched. I used a shell script to deal with startup sequencing:

#!/bin/bash java MyApp & sleep 1 keyreader

though I could have just as easily invoked ProcessBuilder.start() after my application had opened its listener socket - or execve() if it was a C program. I don't see why the same trick wouldn't work for any other data source as well as it does for the keyboard.

:-) My googeling *should* have turned up such sources, but I did not find anything in that regard. Hence my posting here.

Regards, Rudy Wieser

Martin,

The problem with that is that several of the programs I want to control are already build, and I cannot just change them (think file & webbrowser).

Also, I do not want to control just a single app, I want to be able to control whatever is on the desktop (hence changing the command-to-keystroke table, depending on the focussed app)

... But lets beging with just sending keystrokes.

Regards, Rudy Wieser

Windows or Linux or what?

Look at xdotool at

source is at

On Fri, 18 May 2018 20:33:58 +0200, "R.Wieser" declaimed the following:

Prepare to read the 8 or so volumes of the X-Toolkit/X-window documentation -- since you are talking about injecting X-events upstream of any single application.

Maybe something from:

Does there exist a 'windows' for rapsberry Pi???

Yes ... but ...