Depending upon hardware or operating system or NetHack's interface,

some keystrokes may be off-limits.

For example, ^S and ^Q are often used for XON/XOFF flow-control,

meaning that ^S suspends output and subsequent ^Q resumes suspended

output. When that is the case, neither of those characters will

reach NetHack when it is waiting for a command keystroke. So they

aren't used as commands, but 'whatdoes' might not be able to tell

you that if they don't get passed through to NetHack.

^M or <return> or <enter> is likely to be transformed into ^J or

<linefeed> or 'newline' before being passed to NetHack for handling.

So it isn't used as a command, and 'whatdoes' might seem as if it

is reporting the wrong character but will be operating correctly if

it describes ^J when you type ^M.

A NUL character, which is typed as ^<space> on some keyboards,

^@ on others, and maybe not typeable at all on yet others, is not

used as a command, and will be converted into ESC before reaching

'whatdoes'. Unlike ^M, this transformation is performed within

NetHack. But like ^M, if you type NUL and get feedback about ESC,

the situation is expected.

ESC itself is a synonym for ^[, and is another source of oddity.

Various function keys, including cursor arrow keys, may transmit

an "escape sequence" of ESC + [ + other stuff, confusing NetHack

as to what command was intended since the ESC will be processed

and then whatever follows will seem to NetHack like--and be used

as--something typed by the user. (If you press a function key and

a menu of the armor your hero is wearing appears, what happened

was that an escape sequence was sent to NetHack, its ESC aborted

any pending key operation, its '[' was then treated as a command

to show worn armor, and the "other stuff" probably got silently

discarded as invalid choices while you dismissed the menu.)

If you have NetHack's 'altmeta' option enabled, meaning that the

<alt> or <option> key, when used as shift while typing some other

character, transmits ESC and then the other character so NetHack

should treat that other character as a meta-character, then ESC

takes on added potential for confusion. Implicit in the handling

of a two character sequence ESC + something is the fact that when

NetHack sees ESC, it needs to wait for another character before

it can decide what to do. So if you type ESC manually, you'll

need to type it a second time or NetHack will sit there waiting.

(It will then be treated as if you typed ESC rather than M-ESC.)

On some systems, typing ^\ will send a QUIT signal to the current

process, probably killing it and possibly causing it to save a

core dump. It is not used for any NetHack command, so don't type

that character.

One last note: characters shown as ^x mean that you should hold

down the <control> or <ctrl> key as a shift and then type 'x'.

Control characters are all implicitly uppercase, but you don't

need to press the shift key while typing them. The opposite is

true for meta-characters: they can be either case, so you need

to use shift as well as <meta> or <alt> to generate an uppercase

letter meta-character.