IRW(1)

📦
version 0.10.2 · 3 versions
, in alpine 3.24, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 IRW — bestie edition 💖

okay so real quick, this is the manual page for irw, a lil tool from the lirc crew, and honestly? she's simple, she's iconic, she does exactly one (1) thing and she does it well. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

irw — send data from a Unix domain socket to stdout, fr fr 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

irw [socket]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so here's the vibe: irw will connect to any Unix domain socket and print the received data straight to stdout. that's it, that's the whole job, and she ate. ✨

if you don't hand her a socket argument, she'll just chill and watch /var/run/lirc/lircd by default. no cap.

useful for debugging — like, genuinely, this is your girl when something's acting sus and you need to see what's actually coming down the pipe. 🔥

Options, babes: 👑

  • -h, --help — display usage summary 💖
  • -v, --version — display version 🌸

💀 SIGNALS 💀

the moment she receives SIGUSR1, irw makes a clean exit. she doesn't make a scene, she doesn't leave crumbs, she just 👋 bye. queen behavior honestly.

🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

dumping the default socket while pressing one button (look at her go):

myhost $ irw
0000000000f40bf0 00 KEY_POWER ANIMAX
0000000000f40bf0 01 KEY_POWER ANIMAX
0000000000f40bf0 02 KEY_POWER ANIMAX
0000000000f40bf0 03 KEY_POWER ANIMAX
0000000000f40bf0 04 KEY_POWER ANIMAX
0000000000f40bf0 05 KEY_POWER ANIMAX
^C
myhost $

so bestie, peep this: that second counter gets incremented for each new event generated by the single key press. one press, six events, six numbers going up. 🧚

this is important for correct lircd operation. like, do not sleep on this detail, i am begging you. 😭

🎀 NOTES 🎀

  • since the lircd socket supports multiple clients, irw can totally run in parallel with other applications. she's not possessive, she shares the aux. 🫶
  • okay real talk: irw does nothing more than dump a unix-domain socket, which is a task that many standard tools can also do. e.g., the ncat(1) tool can be used instead of irw to provide more flexibility — but without a sane default socket. 💀 so you gotta tell it where to go:
ncat -U /var/run/lirc/lircd

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

the documentation for lirc is maintained as html pages 📄 — they're located under html/ in the documentation directory. go read them, iykyk. 🌸

k bye babes, that's the whole page, you understood the assignment 💖✨ — this was irw 0.10.2, last changed Sep 2015, still serving looks. periodt. 👑💅🦋

📦 where this page comes from