Cdtjkyj

Maybe this is version dependent, but on my machine that uses setxkbmap 1.3.0 the following command works:

setxkbmap -query | grep layout

Note that depending on your need it may be useless to know only the layout : for instance the Dvorak variant of the US layout is quite different than the default QWERTY. The -query option of setxkbmap gives both the layout and the variant, as different fields :

$ setxkbmap -query

rules:      evdev

model:      default

layout:     fr

variant:    bepo

options:    grp:alt_shift_toggle

There is xkb-switch which is described thus:

xkb-switch is a C++ program that
allows to query and change the XKB
layout state.

https://github.com/ierton/xkb-switch

Or, following nozimica's suggestion, you could use:

setxkbmap -print | awk -F"+" '/xkb_symbols/ {print $2}'

From this thread on the Arch Linux boards: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=539406

Yes THERE IS a command line tool that does what you want!
I just discovered it 10min ago :)

Look at here: https://github.com/nonpop/xkblayout-state

xkblayout-state print "%s"

does exactly what you want (it doesn't output an end of line, so add ; echo if you need).
run the tool without parameters for the help.

Use this to get the code for the current layout:

$(xset -q|grep LED| awk '{ print $10 }')

This might needs to be converted to a form you want, like:

case "$(xset -q|grep LED| awk '{ print $10 }')" in

  "00000002") KBD="English" ;;

  "00001002") KBD="Thai" ;;

  *) KBD="unknown" ;;

esac

Another simpler approach, because of fixed positions of the output of the xset -q command, is this:

xset -q | grep -A 0 'LED' | cut -c59-67

It prints 00000002 or 00001002 depending on your current keyboard layout.

On newer systems, you can use

localectl status

It will for instance show you the following:

System Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8

       VC Keymap: us

      X11 Layout: us

From Goosfrabaa in the Arch Linux forums:

setxkbmap -v | awk -F "+" '/symbols/ {print $2}'

This works correctly here, and prints us(dvorak-intl) (displayed as "USA Dvorak international" in the GNOME keyboard selection menu).

The answers so far did not work for me. I use setkbmap with two layouts english and czech so any -print or -query will always return the two. Grepping the LED status for xset -q does not work either since that one shows the status of all keyboard leds.

The best so far was to quickly write this small utility:
https://gist.github.com/fikovnik/ef428e82a26774280c4fdf8f96ce8eeb

#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdlib.h>

#include <string.h>



#include <X11/XKBlib.h>

#include <X11/extensions/XKBrules.h>



int main(int argc, char **argv) {

  Display *dpy = XOpenDisplay(NULL);



  if (dpy == NULL) {

    fprintf(stderr, "Cannot open displayn");

    exit(1);

  }



  XkbStateRec state;

  XkbGetState(dpy, XkbUseCoreKbd, &state);



  XkbDescPtr desc = XkbGetKeyboard(dpy, XkbAllComponentsMask, XkbUseCoreKbd);

  char *group = XGetAtomName(dpy, desc->names->groups[state.group]);

  printf("Full name: %sn", group);



  XkbRF_VarDefsRec vd;

  XkbRF_GetNamesProp(dpy, NULL, &vd);



  char *tok = strtok(vd.layout, ",");



  for (int i = 0; i < state.group; i++) {

    tok = strtok(NULL, ",");

    if (tok == NULL) {

      return 1;

    }

  }



  printf("Layout name: %sn", tok);



  return 0;

}

and compile using


gcc -I/usr/include getxkblayout.c -lX11 -lxkbfile


Partial answer: On KDE, you can apparently get the current keyboard layout through the qdbus command:

$ qdbus org.kde.keyboard /Layouts getCurrentLayout

gb(intl)

I have several layouts configured, but it only shows the one that is currently in use.

Tested on Kubuntu 18.04 (qdbus version 4.8.7). There may be other d-bus based solutions for non-Qt environments, but I do not know about them.

#! /bin/bash

#  (GPL3+) Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)





keyboardLayout () {

    layout=$(variableInFile "KEYMAP" "/etc/vconsole.conf")

    echo ${layout}

}





variableInFile () {

    variable=${1}

    file=${2}



    source ${file}

    eval value=${${variable}}

    echo ${value}

}





keyboardLayout

You can use:

setxkbmap -print | grep xkb_symbols