C++ Binding keyboard keys: iterate over all virtual keys?

Question

I'd like to be able to load custom key binds for my application. A configuration file would typically contain a list of keys and associated function names.

When I load this file, is there a way to iterate over all the possible virtual keys that would be listed inside the configuration file in the form:

for(int i = key0; i < keymax; i = i+key){
    char key = itoa(i);
    if(cfgfile.getfunction(key,function)){
        _keyBinds[key] = function;
    }
}

Or do I need to manually check for every one of them ?

Answer 1

This is the way I finally proceeded to create a map of the keyboard keys. It covers almost all possibilities: non-mappable keys are stored as a hex string, mappable keys which do not represent themselves as a single caracter need to be added manually. Maybe this can be usefull for someone in the future.

CreateKeyboardMap()
{
    string keystring;
    char keybuffer;
    for(int i = 0; i < 256; ++i){
        if(keybuffer = MapVirtualKey(UINT(i),2)){
            keystring += keybuffer;
        }
        else{
            keystring = int_to_hex(i);
        }
        _keyboardMap.insert(_keyboardMap.end(),pair<UINT,string>(i,keystring));
        keystring = "";
    }

    _keyboardMap[0x1B] = "ESCAPE";
    _keyboardMap[0x70] = "F1";
    _keyboardMap[0x71] = "F2";
    _keyboardMap[0x72] = "F3";
    _keyboardMap[0x73] = "F4";
    _keyboardMap[0x74] = "F5";
    _keyboardMap[0x75] = "F6";
    _keyboardMap[0x76] = "F7";
    _keyboardMap[0x77] = "F8";
    _keyboardMap[0x78] = "F9";
    _keyboardMap[0x79] = "F10";
    _keyboardMap[0x7A] = "F11";
    _keyboardMap[0x7B] = "F12";
    _keyboardMap[0x2C] = "PRINT SCREEN";
    _keyboardMap[0x91] = "SCROLL LOCK";
    _keyboardMap[0x08] = "BACKSPACE";
    _keyboardMap[0x20] = "SPACE";
    _keyboardMap[0x2D] = "INSERT";
    _keyboardMap[0x24] = "HOME";
    _keyboardMap[0x22] = "PAGE DOWN";
    _keyboardMap[0x21] = "PAGE UP";
    _keyboardMap[0x2E] = "DELETE";
    _keyboardMap[0x90] = "NUMLOCK";
    _keyboardMap[0x6F] = "NUMPAD /";
    _keyboardMap[0x6A] = "NUMPAD *";
    _keyboardMap[0x6D] = "NUMPAD -";
    _keyboardMap[0x6B] = "NUMPAD +";
    _keyboardMap[0x6E] = "NUMPAD .";
    _keyboardMap[0x60] = "NUMPAD 0";
    _keyboardMap[0x61] = "NUMPAD 1";
    _keyboardMap[0x62] = "NUMPAD 2";
    _keyboardMap[0x63] = "NUMPAD 3";
    _keyboardMap[0x64] = "NUMPAD 4";
    _keyboardMap[0x65] = "NUMPAD 5";
    _keyboardMap[0x66] = "NUMPAD 6";
    _keyboardMap[0x67] = "NUMPAD 7";
    _keyboardMap[0x68] = "NUMPAD 8";
    _keyboardMap[0x68] = "NUMPAD 9";

    _keyboardMap[0x26] = "ARROW UP";
    _keyboardMap[0x28] = "ARROW DOWN";
    _keyboardMap[0x25] = "ARROW LEFT";
    _keyboardMap[0x27] = "ARROW RIGHT";

    _keyboardMap[0x0D] = "ENTER";
    _keyboardMap[0xA0] = "LSHIFT";
    _keyboardMap[0xA1] = "RSHIFT";
    _keyboardMap[0x09] = "TAB";
    _keyboardMap[0x14] = "CAPS LOCK";
    _keyboardMap[0xA2] = "LCONTROL";
    _keyboardMap[0xA3] = "RCONTROL";
    _keyboardMap[0xA4] = "LALT";
    _keyboardMap[0xA5] = "RALT";
    _keyboardMap[0x5B] = "LWIN";
    _keyboardMap[0x5C] = "RWIN";
}

Answer 2

In your routine that loads the contents of the file, you'll want to store the data in a map with the keycodes as the keys and function names as the values. Instead of iterating over all possible keycodes, then, just iterate over the entries in the map.