How do I prevent special characters from being generated by the Ctrl key in a C# console application?

Question

I'm building a little hotkey trainer for StarCraft2 (it's a C# Console application). But I'm struggling to capture Ctrl+ combinations, because certain Ctrl-combinations generate special characters.

For example, when pressing Ctrl+O, Console.ReadKey() won't capture the 'o' character, but rather a special starry '☼' character. How do I prevent this and ensure Ctrl just acts as a modifier key and nothing else?

PS: I know about handling Ctrl+C specifically, so I'm more concerned about the other keys.

Here is a simple code example. Try capturing and outputting Ctrl+O

    private static void Main()
    {
        var pressed = Console.ReadKey();
        Console.WriteLine(pressed.KeyChar);
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

Answer 1

With Console.ReadKey you have everything you need using Key instead of KeyChar :

ConsoleKeyInfo keyInfo = Console.ReadKey();
Console.WriteLine(keyInfo.Key);
Console.WriteLine(keyInfo.Modifier);

As explained on MSDN , the KeyChar is the representation of the key combination (key + modifiers), and Key is the key the user pressed.

Additionally, if you don't want the KeyChar to appear on the screen, you can intercept the key using Console.ReadKey(true) .

Answer 2

You can get the information from the ConsoleKeyInfo object returned by Console.ReadKey

For Ctrl + O, the Ctrl key will be the Modifier property and the O key will be the Key property.

Answer 3

If you are writing a "trainer" , reading StdIn is not going to cut it for you. This will only receive input when the Console App has focus. To read all keyboard input, ie when Start Craft 2 has focus, you need global hooking.

See this article for more info.