Keyboard routines

These functions are declared in the main Allegro header file:

#include <allegro5/allegro.h>

Key codes

The constant ALLEGRO_KEY_MAX is always one higher than the highest key code. So if you want to use the key code as array index you can do something like this:

bool pressed_keys[ALLEGRO_KEY_MAX];
...
pressed_keys[key_code] = true;

These are the list of key codes used by Allegro, which are returned in the event.keyboard.keycode field of the ALLEGRO_KEY_DOWN and ALLEGRO_KEY_UP events and which you can pass to al_key_down:

ALLEGRO_KEY_A ... ALLEGRO_KEY_Z,
ALLEGRO_KEY_0 ... ALLEGRO_KEY_9,
ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_0 ... ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_9,
ALLEGRO_KEY_F1 ... ALLEGRO_KEY_F12,
ALLEGRO_KEY_ESCAPE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_TILDE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_MINUS,
ALLEGRO_KEY_EQUALS,
ALLEGRO_KEY_BACKSPACE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_TAB,
ALLEGRO_KEY_OPENBRACE, ALLEGRO_KEY_CLOSEBRACE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_ENTER,
ALLEGRO_KEY_SEMICOLON,
ALLEGRO_KEY_QUOTE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_BACKSLASH, ALLEGRO_KEY_BACKSLASH2,
ALLEGRO_KEY_COMMA,
ALLEGRO_KEY_FULLSTOP,
ALLEGRO_KEY_SLASH,
ALLEGRO_KEY_SPACE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_INSERT, ALLEGRO_KEY_DELETE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_HOME, ALLEGRO_KEY_END,
ALLEGRO_KEY_PGUP, ALLEGRO_KEY_PGDN,
ALLEGRO_KEY_LEFT, ALLEGRO_KEY_RIGHT,
ALLEGRO_KEY_UP, ALLEGRO_KEY_DOWN,
ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_SLASH, ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_ASTERISK,
ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_MINUS, ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_PLUS,
ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_DELETE, ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_ENTER,
ALLEGRO_KEY_PRINTSCREEN, ALLEGRO_KEY_PAUSE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_ABNT_C1, ALLEGRO_KEY_YEN, ALLEGRO_KEY_KANA,
ALLEGRO_KEY_CONVERT, ALLEGRO_KEY_NOCONVERT,
ALLEGRO_KEY_AT, ALLEGRO_KEY_CIRCUMFLEX,
ALLEGRO_KEY_COLON2, ALLEGRO_KEY_KANJI,
ALLEGRO_KEY_LSHIFT, ALLEGRO_KEY_RSHIFT,
ALLEGRO_KEY_LCTRL, ALLEGRO_KEY_RCTRL,
ALLEGRO_KEY_ALT, ALLEGRO_KEY_ALTGR,
ALLEGRO_KEY_LWIN, ALLEGRO_KEY_RWIN,
ALLEGRO_KEY_MENU,
ALLEGRO_KEY_SCROLLLOCK,
ALLEGRO_KEY_NUMLOCK,
ALLEGRO_KEY_CAPSLOCK
ALLEGRO_KEY_PAD_EQUALS,
ALLEGRO_KEY_BACKQUOTE,
ALLEGRO_KEY_SEMICOLON2,
ALLEGRO_KEY_COMMAND

Keyboard modifier flags

ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_SHIFT
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_CTRL
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_ALT
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_LWIN
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_RWIN
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_MENU
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_ALTGR
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_COMMAND
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_SCROLLLOCK
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_NUMLOCK
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_CAPSLOCK
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_INALTSEQ
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_ACCENT1
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_ACCENT2
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_ACCENT3
ALLEGRO_KEYMOD_ACCENT4

The event field 'keyboard.modifiers' is a bitfield composed of these constants. These indicate the modifier keys which were pressed at the time a character was typed.