KEYBOARD Command

Places the specified character expression in the keyboard buffer.

Characters remain in the buffer until Visual FoxPro looks for keyboard input. At that point, the characters are read and output as if they were entered directly from the keyboard. You can use KEYBOARD to create self-running demonstration systems that showcase your applications.

KEYBOARD cKeyboardValue [PLAIN] [CLEAR]

Parameters

  • cKeyboardValue
    Specifies the character expression that is placed in the keyboard buffer.

    The character expression can be a character string, a key label, a set of key labels, or a user-defined function that returns a character expression. For a listing of key labels, see ON KEY LABEL Command.

    Note

    If cKeyboardValue is a key label, it must be enclosed in braces and single or double quotation marks. For example:

    KEYBOARD "{CTRL+LEFTARROW}"
    

    To insert a pause in the keyboard buffer, you can also include the PAUSE  nSeconds option as part of the argument for cKeyboardValue where nSeconds specifies the number of seconds to pause. For example, the following lines of code insert a pause of five seconds between the strings "Hello," and "World":

    KEYBOARD "Hello,{PAUSE 5} World"
    
  • PLAIN
    If you have keyboard macros defined or active ON KEY LABEL commands, you can include PLAIN to bypass these key assignments. PLAIN fills the keyboard with the literal key character, not the key assignment.

    For example, if you have assigned a command to the A key with ON KEY LABEL and A is included in cKeyboardValue, use PLAIN to place the letter A in the keyboard buffer. The ON KEY LABEL command assigned to A is not executed.

  • CLEAR
    Empties the keyboard buffer before the keyboard buffer is filled with cKeyboardValue.

Remarks

You can fill the keyboard buffer with up to 128 characters. Once the keyboard buffer is full, additional characters are ignored.

See Also

Reference

CHRSAW( ) Function

ON KEY LABEL Command

PLAY MACRO Command

SET FUNCTION Command

Other Resources

Commands (Visual FoxPro)

Language Reference (Visual FoxPro)