Get KeyChar from key text

Question

I have to work with a string standing for a keystroke (for instance "A", "ENTER", "F4"). From this string I need to get the keychar, the keycode and the key modifiers for the keystroke.

Here is what I do (for F4 for example) :

AWTKeyStroke ks = AWTKeyStroke.getAWTKeyStroke("F4");
System.out.println(ks.getKeyCode());
System.out.println(ks.getKeyModifiers());
System.out.println(ks.getKeyChar());

I get :

115
0
?

keycode and modifiers are OK but whatever keystroke I try I always get ? for the keychar ...

Am I missing something ?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 26 '12 at 10:09

2 comments:

you don't specify that you typed the key, in which case pressed is assumed and no character is printed
there is no valid unicode character for "F4"

If you change your statement to System.out.println((int)ks.getKeyChar()); you will see that keyChar is 65535, which is the value of KeyEvent.CHAR_UNDEFINED.

You could try AWTKeyStroke ks = AWTKeyStroke.getAWTKeyStroke("typed A"); to see that keyChar is A and you could also try AWTKeyStroke ks = AWTKeyStroke.getAWTKeyStroke("typed F4"); to see that you get an exception.

Get KeyChar from key text

1 Answers1