Remap a keyboard with ioctl under linux - c

Question

I am actually trying to write a small program to catch global keyboard inputs from specific USB keyboards under linux.
I am testing with this piece of code :
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <linux/input.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
static const char *const evval[3] = {
"RELEASED",
"PRESSED ",
"REPEATED"
};
int main(void)
{
const char *dev = "/dev/input/event2";
struct input_event ev;
ssize_t n;
int fd;
char name[256]= "Unknown";
// int codes[2];
// codes[0] = 58; /* M keycap */
// codes[1] = 49; /* assign to N */
fd = open(dev, O_RDONLY);
if (fd == -1) {
fprintf(stderr, "Cannot open %s: %s.\n", dev, strerror(errno));
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
if(ioctl(fd, EVIOCGNAME(sizeof(name)), name) > 0)
{
printf("The device on %s says its name is '%s'\n", dev, name);
}
/*
int err = ioctl(fd, EVIOCSKEYCODE, codes);
if (err) {
perror("evdev ioctl");
}*/
while (1) {
n = read(fd, &ev, sizeof ev);
if (n == (ssize_t)-1) {
if (errno == EINTR)
continue;
else
break;
} else
if (n != sizeof ev) {
errno = EIO;
break;
}
if (ev.type == EV_KEY && ev.value >= 0 && ev.value <= 2)
printf("%s 0x%04x (%d)\n", evval[ev.value], (int)ev.code, (int)ev.code);
}
fflush(stdout);
fprintf(stderr, "%s.\n", strerror(errno));
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
Ths point is that I don't know how to change some input key by other. I tried by calling write() on currently red event by changing the event code, sent key was still previous one, and I tried to used ioctl with EVIOCSKEYCODE, but the call failed with an "invalid argument" error (and I'm not sure to call it correctly).
How can I change outputed key correctly ?

Answer 1

Use the EVIOCGRAB ioctl to grab the input device, so that by reading the events you consume them. Normally (not-grabbed) the events are not consumed when you read them. The ioctl takes an additional parameter, (int)1 for grabbing, (int)0 for releasing.
To re-inject any events, just write them to the uinput device. See eg. a mouse example here. (The event structures are the same type, you only need to write a struct uinput_user_dev structure to the uinput device first, to describe your new input device (which provides the mapped events).)
In other words, you don't remap: you consume and forward.