How can I programmatically generate keypress events in C

Question

How can I programmatically create an event that would simulate a key being pressed on the keyboard

User · Answer

To produce key events without Windows Forms Context, We can use the following method,

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern void keybd_event(byte bVk, byte bScan, uint dwFlags, uint dwExtraInfo);

sample code is given below:

const int VK_UP = 0x26; //up key
const int VK_DOWN = 0x28;  //down key
const int VK_LEFT = 0x25;
const int VK_RIGHT = 0x27;
const uint KEYEVENTF_KEYUP = 0x0002;
const uint KEYEVENTF_EXTENDEDKEY = 0x0001;
int press()
{
    //Press the key
    keybd_event((byte)VK_UP, 0, KEYEVENTF_EXTENDEDKEY | 0, 0);
    return 0;
}

List of Virtual Keys are defined here.

To get the complete picture, please use the below link, http://tksinghal.blogspot.in/2011/04/how-to-press-and-hold-keyboard-key.html

User · Answer

The question is tagged WPF but the answers so far are specific WinForms and Win32  To do this in WPF  simply construct a KeyEventArgs and call RaiseEvent on the target   For example  to send an Insert key KeyDown event to the currently focused element  var key   Key Insert                        Key to send var target   Keyboard FocusedElement        Target element var routedEvent   Keyboard KeyDownEvent     Event to send      target RaiseEvent    new KeyEventArgs      Keyboard PrimaryDevice      PresentationSource FromVisual target       0      key      RoutedEvent routedEvent       This solution doesn t rely on native calls or Windows internals and should be much more reliable than the others   It also allows you to simulate a keypress on a specific element  Note that this code is only applicable to PreviewKeyDown  KeyDown  PreviewKeyUp  and KeyUp events   If you want to send TextInput events you ll do this instead  var text    quot Hello quot   var target   Keyboard FocusedElement  var routedEvent   TextCompositionManager TextInputEvent   target RaiseEvent    new TextCompositionEventArgs      InputManager Current PrimaryKeyboardDevice      new TextComposition InputManager Current  target  text       RoutedEvent   routedEvent       Also note that   Controls expect to receive Preview events  for example PreviewKeyDown should precede KeyDown  Using target RaiseEvent      sends the event directly to the target without meta-processing such as accelerators  text composition and IME   This is normally what you want  On the other hand  if you really do what to simulate actual keyboard keys for some reason  you would use InputManager ProcessInput   instead

User · Answer

Windows SendMessage API with send WM KEYDOWN

User · Answer

Easily   because someone else already did the work for us      After spending a lot of time trying to this with the suggested answers I came across this codeplex project Windows Input Simulator  which made it simple as can be to simulate a key press    Install the package  can be done or from the NuGet package manager or from the package manager console like      Install-Package InputSimulator  Use this 2 lines of code   inputSimulator   new InputSimulator   inputSimulator Keyboard KeyDown VirtualKeyCode RETURN    And that s it   -------EDIT--------  The project page on codeplex is flagged for some reason  this is the link to the NuGet gallery

User · Answer

I ve not used it  but SendKeys may do what you want      Use SendKeys to send keystrokes and   keystroke combinations to the active   application  This class cannot be   instantiated  To send a keystroke to a   class and immediately continue with   the flow of your program  use Send  To   wait for any processes started by the   keystroke  use SendWait    System Windows Forms SendKeys Send  A    System Windows Forms SendKeys Send   ENTER       Microsoft has some more usage examples here

[c#] How can I programmatically generate keypress events in C#?

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