The GetAsyncKeyState function determines whether a key is up or down at the time the function is called, and whether the key was pressed after a previous call to GetAsyncKeyState.

Syntax

SHORT GetAsyncKeyState(      
    int vKey
);

Parameters

vKey

[in] Specifies one of 256 possible virtual-key codes. For more information, see Virtual Key Codes.

Windows NT/2000/XP: You can use left- and right-distinguishing constants to specify certain keys. See the Remarks section for further information.

Return Value

If the function succeeds, the return value specifies whether the key was pressed since the last call to GetAsyncKeyState, and whether the key is currently up or down. If the most significant bit is set, the key is down, and if the least significant bit is set, the key was pressed after the previous call to GetAsyncKeyState. However, you should not rely on this last behavior; for more information, see the Remarks.

Windows NT/2000/XP: The return value is zero for the following cases:

• The current desktop is not the active desktop
• The foreground thread belongs to another process and the desktop does not allow the hook or the journal record.

Windows 95/98/Me: The return value is the global asynchronous key state for each virtual key. The system does not check which thread has the keyboard focus.

Windows 95/98/Me: Windows 95 does not support the left- and right-distinguishing constants. If you call GetAsyncKeyState with these constants, the return value is zero.

Remarks

The GetAsyncKeyState function works with mouse buttons. However, it checks on the state of the physical mouse buttons, not on the logical mouse buttons that the physical buttons are mapped to. For example, the call GetAsyncKeyState(VK_LBUTTON) always returns the state of the left physical mouse button, regardless of whether it is mapped to the left or right logical mouse button. You can determine the system's current mapping of physical mouse buttons to logical mouse buttons by calling

GetSystemMetrics(SM_SWAPBUTTON) 

which returns TRUE if the mouse buttons have been swapped.

Although the least significant bit of the return value indicates whether the key has been pressed since the last query, due to the pre-emptive multitasking nature of Windows, another application can call GetAsyncKeyState and receive the "recently pressed" bit instead of your application. The behavior of the least significant bit of the return value is retained strictly for compatibility with 16-bit Windows applications (which are non-preemptive) and should not be relied upon.

You can use the virtual-key code constants VK_SHIFT, VK_CONTROL, and VK_MENU as values for the vKey parameter. This gives the state of the SHIFT, CTRL, or ALT keys without distinguishing between left and right.

Windows NT/2000/XP: You can use the following virtual-key code constants as values for vKey to distinguish between the left and right instances of those keys.

Code	Meaning
VK_LSHIFT	Left-shift key.
VK_RSHIFT	Right-shift key.
VK_LCONTROL	Left-control key.
VK_RCONTROL	Right-control key.
VK_LMENU	Left-menu key.
VK_RMENU	Right-menu key.

These left- and right-distinguishing constants are only available when you call the GetKeyboardState, SetKeyboardState, GetAsyncKeyState, GetKeyState, and MapVirtualKey functions.

Function Information

Minimum DLL Version	user32.dll
Header	Declared in Winuser.h, include Windows.h
Import library	User32.lib
Minimum operating systems	Windows 95, Windows NT 3.1

See Also

Keyboard Input, GetKeyboardState, GetKeyState, GetSystemMetrics, MapVirtualKey, SetKeyboardState