How Can I Detect Special Keyboard Keys (Enter, Backspace, etc.) in Golang?

Detecting Keyboard Input in Golang

When reading user input directly from the terminal, identifying special keys such as Enter and Backspace presents a challenge. This article explains how to determine the byte array or string representation of these keys in Go.

Using the "cbreak" flag, user input can be read character by character. However, special keys like Enter and Backspace do not have obvious byte values. To solve this, we can leverage libraries that provide a mechanism to detect specific key presses.

Using Term

One popular library for handling terminal input is "term." With Term, we can define a loop that polls for keypresses. Each keypress event contains information about the pressed key, making it easy to identify specials.

The example provided demonstrates how to capture various keys, including F1, Enter, and Backspace, by using the ev.Key and ev.Ch fields of the keypress event. This enables us to conditionally handle different inputs in our program.

Using Bufio

Another approach is to use the "bufio" package. While this method reads a single character at a time, special keys may be challenging to detect. However, certain ascii values can be identified to indicate key presses. For instance, Enter has an ascii value of 10, while Backspace is represented by 8.

Using the "bufio" package, we can define a loop to read single characters. By inspecting the ascii value, we can execute specific actions upon recognizing special keys.

Custom Implementation

If the above methods do not suit your needs, it is possible to create a custom implementation. This involves accessing the underlying operating system's terminal interface and decoding the input data to identify unique key combinations.

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