ASCII Mnemonics

Keystrokes originating at a host keyboard might have a corresponding ASCII value. The response of the Get Key (51) function to a keystroke depends on whether the key is defined and also on whether the key is defined as an ASCII value or an ASCII mnemonic.

The keyboard for one session might not be capable of producing some codes needed by the another session. ASCII mnemonics that represent these codes can be included in the data string parameter of the Send Key (3) function.

The capabilities of the Send Key (3) function and the Get Key (51) function allow sessions to exchange keystrokes that might not be represented by ASCII values or by an available key. A set of mnemonics that can be generated from a keyboard is provided. These mnemonics let you use ASCII characters to represent the special function keys of the workstation keyboard.

Mnemonics for unshifted keys consist of the escape character followed by an abbreviation. This is also true for the shift keys themselves, Upper shift, Alt, and Ctrl. Mnemonics for shifted keys consist of the mnemonic for the shift key followed by the mnemonic for the unshifted key. Hence the mnemonic for a shifted key is a 4-character sequence of escape character, abbreviation, escape character, abbreviation.

The default escape character is @. You can change the value of the escape character to any other character with the ESC=c option of the Set Session Parameters (9) function. The following text uses the default escape character, however.

Mnemonics for these shift indicators are never received separately by an application. Likewise, they are never sent separately by an application. Shift indicator mnemonics are always accompanied by a non-shift-indicator character or mnemonic.

The abbreviations used make the mnemonics for special keys easy to remember. An alphabetic key code has been used for the most common keys. For example, the Clear key is C; the Tab key is T, and so on. Please note that the uppercase and lowercase alphabetic characters are mnemonic abbreviations for different keys.

The following text describes the use of these functions.