Checking entire keyboard state via DllCall

[greenmachine]

I was reading through some scripts on here, and there's dealing with hotkeys that got my attention. Someone asked whether you could make a function to get key presses and make a hotkey out of that. I looked up some DllCall stuff, and found GetKeyboardState. I want to try this function to see if it does anything I want it to, but I can't figure out how to use the DllCall.

The GetKeyboardState function copies the status of the 256 virtual keys to the specified buffer.

Syntax

BOOL GetKeyboardState(

PBYTE lpKeyState

);

Parameters

lpKeyState [in] Pointer to the 256-byte array that receives the status data for each virtual key.

I get this far:

Global $KeyboardState[257] ; one extra just in case

$returnvalue = DllCall ("user32.dll", "int", "GetKeyboardState", "_____", $KeyboardState)

MsgBox (0, "return", $returnvalue & @CRLF & @error)

No matter what it put in the ___ part (where it should be pbyte according to MSDN), I get a return value of 0 and @error is 2. So... anyone know what the equivalent of Pbyte is in AutoIt? Or, another function that I could use instead of this?

[w0uter]

try dllstructcreate to create an array of bytes and then use dllstructgetptr for the call

Pbyte = Pointer to a Byte

[greenmachine]

Good idea. Now to learn how to do that.

[greenmachine]

I don't think I'm getting it. I made a struct:

$struct = DllStructCreate ("byte[257]")

Then do I call it like this?

$returnvalue = DllCall ("user32.dll", "int", "GetKeyboardState", "ptr", DllStructGetPtr ($struct))

I need help on the call part.. what should I use instead of ptr (since it doesn't seem to work), or am I doing something else wrong?

[Oxin8]

not sure if all the numbers are perfect but it definately works

$struct = DllStructCreate ("byte[256]")
$returnvalue = DllCall ("user32.dll", "int", "GetKeyboardState", "ptr", DllStructGetPtr ($struct))
$temp = DLLStructGetData($struct,1,1)
$message = DLLStructGetData($struct,1,1)
For $i = 2 to 256
message = $message & @CRLF & DLLStructGetData($struct,1,$i)
Next
Msgbox(0,"Keys",$message)

sorry it doesn't look any prettier.... lol

[greenmachine]

Eh, I was almost getting there. Thanks for the help.

[Oxin8]

anytime. plus i had to take a break from trying to get the raw input api's working in vb. if it's this much fun in vb just wait until i have to convert it to autoit... ugh

[greenmachine]

VB isn't being nice to me. I evidently don't have the right tools to work with normal VB programs, so the Winsock script I downloaded can't be edited and re-run.. because I don't have a compiler.... Something like that. I don't even know. I just haven't had any luck with file transfer with tcp.