C#: Is there a way to properly convert Keys.Oem? to proper string without doing string manipulation?

C#: Is there a method to convert Keys.Oem? to proper string without doing string manipulation?

When I do e.ToString() and if the key is a / or <, and so on, it converts as OemSlash, OemQuestion. Is there a way .net method properly convert Keys.OemSpace to "Space" without it including "OemSpace" and without string manipulation? And if there's not a built-in method to do such a thing, what would be the best way to go upon it then?

From stackoverflow

• The only way I can think of to do this is to use regular expressions. I know this isn't the answer you probably wanted. Hopefully someone knows of a method to do this.

• You probably want to use the ToAscii or ToUnicode function for this, which is part of the Win32 API. (I doubt you're going to get a simple pure BCL/cross-platform solution, if that's what you want.) They're relatively simple functions that convert virtual key codes to characters (either in ASCII or Unicode encoding, as the names suggest).

  Edit: I think you may actually be in luck with the KeysConverter class!

  Samuel : KeysConverter seems to be almost useless. Keys.D3 | Keys.Shift produces "Shift+3".

  Noldorin : Yeah, so that's not what is needed. I'll remove that and leave the original part of the post.

• If you want to determine what character you will get from a given key with given modifiers, you should use the user32 ToAscii function. Or ToAsciiEx if you want to use a keyboard layout other then the current one.

  using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
  public static class User32Interop
  {
    public static char ToAscii(Keys key, Keys modifiers)
    {
      var outputBuilder = new StringBuilder(2);
      int result = ToAscii((uint)key, 0, GetKeyState(modifiers),
                           outputBuilder, 0);
      if (result == 1)
        return outputBuilder[0];
      else
        throw new Exception("Invalid key");
    }
  
    private const byte HighBit = 0x80;
    private static byte[] GetKeyState(Keys modifiers)
    {
      var keyState = new byte[256];
      foreach (Keys key in Enum.GetValues(typeof(Keys)))
      {
        if ((modifiers & key) == key)
        {
          keyState[(int)key] = HighBit;
        }
      }
      return keyState;
    }
  
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern int ToAscii(uint uVirtKey, uint uScanCode,
                                      byte[] lpKeyState,
                                      [Out] StringBuilder lpChar,
                                      uint uFlags);
  }
  

  You can now use it like this:

  char c = User32Interop.ToAscii(Keys.OemQuestion, Keys.ShiftKey); // = '?'
  

  If you need more than one modifier, just or them. Keys.ShiftKey | Keys.AltKey

  SealedSun : +1 for the code. Really useful, thanks ^^