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get current active keyboard layout(language) in linux

In my C/C++ program I want to know which language is user going to type. I mean the language whose ID is displayed in the corner of the task bar. Like EN or RU or ZH or FR or IT.

I know how to get the list of possible layout:

$ setxkbmap -query | grep layout

output:

layout:     us,ru

But how to know which one is selected right now? (for the current window)

over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo
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setxkbmap -print isn't helpful in this case, which was also my first idea. I have found a little tool, very easy to compile

sudo apt-get install git
mkdir -p `~/src`
cd `~/src`
git clone https://github.com/nonpop/xkblayout-state.git 
cd xkblayout-state
make

Now you can run the command ./xkblayout-state to get the current layout, e.g.

./xkblayout-state print "%n"                          
German%

or list all installed layouts

./xkblayout-state print "%N"
German
English
English

In this case without a trailing %. I would have expected that, because I have not added a \n.

over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo Report
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