Does "adb shell input text" simulate software keyboard input?

Question

adb shell input text "sometext"

OR

adb shell input keyevent eventid

do these simulate actual input from a virtual/ hardware keyboard respectively ?

I did not find any documentation for these commands on developer.android.com/

Is there any trusted documentation for these commands?

Answer 1

adb shell input help produces (after a long list of input devices):

The commands and default sources are:
  text <string> (Default: touchscreen)
  keyevent [--longpress] <key code number or name> ... (Default: keyboard)
  tap <x> <y> (Default: touchscreen)
  swipe <x1> <y1> <x2> <y2> [duration(ms)] (Default: touchscreen)
  press (Default: trackball)
  roll <dx> <dy> (Default: trackball)

So it seems "text" is indeed for virtual (Default: touchscreen) and keyevent for physical (Default: keyboard).

You can override the text input device - adb shell input keyboard text "foo" works just fine. You can't send raw keycodes from the screen though.