How to listen for mouse events in Linux?

问题:

I want to write a program that would run in the background and log pointer's position when a mouse click occured. I tried to search for it in Google, but results were for NCurses and some GUI libraries. Is there any way that I could write a program that listens to mouse events in the background? C and/or Python ways are prefered.

回答1:

Here is an example for logging mouse position, clicks and releases:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <X11/Xlib.h>

char *key_name[] = {
    "first",
    "second (or middle)",
    "third",
    "fourth",  // :D
    "fivth"    // :|
};

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    Display *display;
    XEvent xevent;
    Window window;

    if( (display = XOpenDisplay(NULL)) == NULL )
        return -1;


    window = DefaultRootWindow(display);
    XAllowEvents(display, AsyncBoth, CurrentTime);

    XGrabPointer(display, 
                 window,
                 1, 
                 PointerMotionMask | ButtonPressMask | ButtonReleaseMask , 
                 GrabModeAsync,
                 GrabModeAsync, 
                 None,
                 None,
                 CurrentTime);

    while(1) {
        XNextEvent(display, &xevent);

        switch (xevent.type) {
            case MotionNotify:
                printf("Mouse move      : [%d, %d]\n", xevent.xmotion.x_root, xevent.xmotion.y_root);
                break;
            case ButtonPress:
                printf("Button pressed  : %s\n", key_name[xevent.xbutton.button - 1]);
                break;
            case ButtonRelease:
                printf("Button released : %s\n", key_name[xevent.xbutton.button - 1]);
                break;
        }
    }

    return 0;
}

Compile it using:

$ gcc -lX11 mouse.c -o mouse
$ ./mouse 
Mouse move      : [664, 395]
Mouse move      : [665, 393]
Mouse move      : [666, 393]
Mouse move      : [666, 392]
Mouse move      : [664, 392]
Mouse move      : [664, 393]
Mouse move      : [664, 395]
Button pressed  : first
Button released : first
Button pressed  : third
Button released : third
^C
$

Look also here Keyboard and Pointer Events and there are a lot of information in The Xlib Manual.

回答2:

similar question: How can I capture mouseevents and keyevents using python in background on linux

The above answer is using python binding for evdev. this binding is available for capturing mouse event.