libxkbcommon is a keyboard keymap compiler and support library which processes a reduced subset of keymaps as defined by the XKB (X Keyboard Extension) specification. It also contains a module for handling Compose and dead keys, a separate registry library for listing available keyboard layouts and a fair set of CLI tools.

• Introduction to XKB: to learn the essentials of XKB.
• User-configuration: instructions to add a custom layout or option.
• Quick Guide: introduction on how to use this library.
• Tools: introduction to the xkbcli application.
• Release notes.
• Frequently Asked Question (FAQ).

libxkbcommon is built with Meson:

meson setup build
meson compile -C build
meson test -C build # Run the tests.

To build for use with Wayland, you can disable X11 support while still using the X11 keyboard configuration resource files thusly:

meson setup build \
      -Denable-x11=false \
      -Dxkb-config-root=/usr/share/X11/xkb \
      -Dx-locale-root=/usr/share/X11/locale
meson compile -C build

While libxkbcommon’s API is somewhat derived from the classic XKB API as found in X11/extensions/XKB.h and friends, it has been substantially reworked to expose fewer internal details to clients.

See the API Documentation.

Libxkbcommon has a fair set of CLI tools, grouped under the xkbcli application:

xkbcli compile-keymap

Compile an XKB keymap

xkbcli compile-compose

Compile a compose file

xkbcli how-to-type

Show how to type a given Unicode codepoint

xkbcli interactive-wayland

Interactive debugger for XKB keymaps for Wayland

xkbcli interactive-x11

Interactive debugger for XKB keymaps for X11

xkbcli interactive-evdev

Interactive debugger for XKB keymaps for evdev

xkbcli dump-keymap-wayland

Dump a XKB keymap from a Wayland compositor

xkbcli dump-keymap-x11

Dump a XKB keymap from a X server

xkbcli list

List available layouts and more

It may require the installation of the package libxkbcommon-tools or similar name.

libxkbcommon does not distribute a keyboard layout dataset itself, other than for testing purposes. The most common dataset is xkeyboard-config, which is used by all current distributions for their X11 XKB data. Further information on xkeyboard-config is available at its homepage and at its repository.

The dataset for Compose is distributed in libX11, as part of the X locale data.

See Compatibility notes.

An project’s homepage can be found at https://xkbcommon.org.

xkbcommon is maintained in git at: https://github.com/xkbcommon/libxkbcommon

Patches are always welcome, and may be sent to either xorg-devel@lists.x.org or wayland-devel@lists.freedesktop.org or in a GitHub pull request.

Bug reports (and usage questions) are also welcome, and may be filed at GitHub.

The maintainers are:

• Daniel Stone
• Ran Benita
• Pierre Le Marre

See the LICENSE file.

Many thanks are due to Dan Nicholson for his heroic work in getting xkbcommon off the ground initially.