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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.
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