decode_modifiers(3)

🎀 decode_modifiers(3) 🎀

okay bestie, so this one lives in the Arcan Lua API and it's genuinely such a slay little helper 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

decode_modifiers — turns a modifier-bitmap into a textual representation. literally converting keyboard-modifier soup into words you can actually read 🔥

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

modtbl or modstr
decode_modifiers( modval, separator )

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the input table you get handed as part of the _input event handler has a modifiers field, right? and that field is a bitmap of all the different modifier states currently vibing. this function takes that bitmap and converts it into one of two things, depending on what you ask for:

• an integer-indexed table of text representations — one entry per modifier that's actually present, or
• a single concatenated string, with whatever character you passed in separator dropped between the individual modifiers.

here's the vibe check on which one you get: if the separator argument is provided and it's a non-empty string, then you get modstr back 🫶. otherwise? you get modtbl. no cap, that's the whole rule.

the possible text representations of the modifiers are:

"lshift", "rshift", "lalt", "ralt", "lctrl", "rctrl", "lmeta", "rmeta", "num", "caps", "mode"

that's the full roster, icon behavior only ✨

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🦋 NOTES 🦋

1. if the separator is an empty string, the '_' character will be used as the separator instead. sneaky little default, but okay 👑
2. there's also a modifier bit to indicate whether the event was a repeat (only if the input platform supports that, iykyk). this one will not be added to the decoded output, because it would subtly break a lot of 'naive' approaches to keybindings. so like, it's on purpose. do not come for it 💀

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🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

function decode_modifiers0()
      print( table.concat(decode_modifiers( 0xffffff ), "0) );
      print( decode_modifiers(0xffffff, "_") );
end

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🍓 sign-off 🍓

that's the whole page, bestie — shipped under system, dated October 2026. go forth and decode those modifiers, main character 🧚💜