Mapping dead keys like "^"

Question

I'm currently rebinding almost all of my Emacs bindings to fit my new keyboard layout, bépo, a french equivalent of dvorak.

I'm having trouble mapping my ^ key. The ^ key is a dead key but not at a material level.

I'd like to be able to to map C-^ but currently, it don't work. Because "dead-circumflex" and "circumflex" are two different keys.

If I do:

(global-set-key "C-^" 'next-line)

Then, pressing control key with "^" key does the following:

 <C-dead-circumflex> is undefined

We have the proof emacs see the dead-circumflex. But I still can't manage to map it.

I know that I can do

(global-set-key "^" 'next-line)

, and that it will work by pressing ^ twice, but it's not the workaround I'm searching for.

Answer 1

The error message tells you what name Emacs uses for the key. You can pass that string to the kbd function to bind it.

(global-set-key (kbd "<C-dead-circumflex>") 'next-line)