polling key state on a Linux keyboard with EVIOCGKEY

Here's another quick Linux input snippet.  Sometimes you just want to check if a key is pressed down rather than using the event-driven interface from evdev.  That can be accomplished by issuing EVIOCGKEY, which asks the device for a bitmask of key states.

int is_key_pressed(int fd, int key)
{
        char key_b[KEY_MAX/8 + 1];

        memset(key_b, 0, sizeof(key_b));
        ioctl(fd, EVIOCGKEY(sizeof(key_b)), key_b);

        return !!(key_b[key/8] & (1<<(key % 8)));
}

...where 'key' can be one of the key codes specified in <linux/input.h>. For example KEY_F1 corresponds to key code 59.  'fd' is a file handle for a keyboard device.