You can use showkey command from kbd package to quickly find out an ASCII code of a key:
After that you you can press any number of keys to find out their ASCII codes (you can press CTRL+d to terminate the program).
Note: kbd package should be installed out-of-the-box on most Linux distributions, if you don’t have it for some reason, you can install it with:
apt install kbd
# rpm-based (Fedora, CentOS, etc.)
dnf install kbd
# Arch
pacman -S kbd
# Alpine
apk add kbd
Alternatives
Alternatively, you can use the man page of ascii command (this should work both on Linux on BSD):
I’ll include the tables here for convenience:
────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────
000 0 00 NUL ” (null character) │ 100 64 40 @
001 1 01 SOH (start of heading) │ 101 65 41 A
002 2 02 STX (start of text) │ 102 66 42 B
003 3 03 ETX (end of text) │ 103 67 43 C
004 4 04 EOT (end of transmission) │ 104 68 44 D
005 5 05 ENQ (enquiry) │ 105 69 45 E
006 6 06 ACK (acknowledge) │ 106 70 46 F
007 7 07 BEL ‘a’ (bell) │ 107 71 47 G
010 8 08 BS ‘b’ (backspace) │ 110 72 48 H
011 9 09 HT ‘t’ (horizontal tab) │ 111 73 49 I
012 10 0A LF ‘n’ (new line) │ 112 74 4A J
013 11 0B VT ‘v’ (vertical tab) │ 113 75 4B K
014 12 0C FF ‘f’ (form feed) │ 114 76 4C L
015 13 0D CR ‘r’ (carriage ret) │ 115 77 4D M
016 14 0E SO (shift out) │ 116 78 4E N
017 15 0F SI (shift in) │ 117 79 4F O
020 16 10 DLE (data link escape) │ 120 80 50 P
021 17 11 DC1 (device control 1) │ 121 81 51 Q
022 18 12 DC2 (device control 2) │ 122 82 52 R
023 19 13 DC3 (device control 3) │ 123 83 53 S
024 20 14 DC4 (device control 4) │ 124 84 54 T
025 21 15 NAK (negative ack.) │ 125 85 55 U
026 22 16 SYN (synchronous idle) │ 126 86 56 V
027 23 17 ETB (end of trans. blk) │ 127 87 57 W
030 24 18 CAN (cancel) │ 130 88 58 X
031 25 19 EM (end of medium) │ 131 89 59 Y
032 26 1A SUB (substitute) │ 132 90 5A Z
033 27 1B ESC (escape) │ 133 91 5B [
034 28 1C FS (file separator) │ 134 92 5C ‘\’
035 29 1D GS (group separator) │ 135 93 5D ]
036 30 1E RS (record separator) │ 136 94 5E ^
037 31 1F US (unit separator) │ 137 95 5F _
040 32 20 SPACE │ 140 96 60 `
041 33 21 ! │ 141 97 61 a
042 34 22 ” │ 142 98 62 b
043 35 23 # │ 143 99 63 c
044 36 24 $ │ 144 100 64 d
045 37 25 % │ 145 101 65 e
046 38 26 & │ 146 102 66 f
047 39 27 ‘ │ 147 103 67 g
050 40 28 ( │ 150 104 68 h
051 41 29 ) │ 151 105 69 i
052 42 2A * │ 152 106 6A j
053 43 2B + │ 153 107 6B k
054 44 2C , │ 154 108 6C l
055 45 2D – │ 155 109 6D m
056 46 2E . │ 156 110 6E n
057 47 2F / │ 157 111 6F o
060 48 30 0 │ 160 112 70 p
061 49 31 1 │ 161 113 71 q
062 50 32 2 │ 162 114 72 r
063 51 33 3 │ 163 115 73 s
064 52 34 4 │ 164 116 74 t
065 53 35 5 │ 165 117 75 u
066 54 36 6 │ 166 118 76 v
067 55 37 7 │ 167 119 77 w
070 56 38 8 │ 170 120 78 x
071 57 39 9 │ 171 121 79 y
072 58 3A : │ 172 122 7A z
073 59 3B ; │ 173 123 7B {
074 60 3C < │ 174 124 7C |
075 61 3D = │ 175 125 7D }
076 62 3E > │ 176 126 7E ~
077 63 3F ? │ 177 127 7F DEL
Compact tables in hex and decimal:
————- ———————————
0: 0 @ P ` p 0: ( 2 < F P Z d n x
1: ! 1 A Q a q 1: ) 3 = G Q [ e o y
2: ” 2 B R b r 2: * 4 > H R f p z
3: # 3 C S c s 3: ! + 5 ? I S ] g q {
4: $ 4 D T d t 4: ” , 6 @ J T ^ h r |
5: % 5 E U e u 5: # – 7 A K U _ i s }
6: & 6 F V f v 6: $ . 8 B L V ` j t ~
7: ‘ 7 G W g w 7: % / 9 C M W a k u DEL
8: ( 8 H X h x 8: & 0 : D N X b l v
9: ) 9 I Y i y 9: ‘ 1 ; E O Y c m w
A: * : J Z j z
B: + ; K [ k {
C: , < L l |
D: – = M ] m }
E: . > N ^ n ~
F: / ? O _ o DEL
Note: This is a snapshot of the wiki page from OneThingWell.dev wiki, you can find the latest, fully formatted version here: onethingwell.dev/linux-finding-ascii-code-of-a-key.
