Understanding precedence of minor modes keymaps

Question

I would like to understand when keymaps of minor modes get "applied" and how do they get applied exactly? In particular, is there a way to see a list of a active minor-mode maps? I know I can look the list of active minor-modes and check which of them has a keymap, but I am looking for a deeper understanding of the mechanism).

One reason I want to understand this is to figure out what happens when I have multiple minor modes mapping the same key sequence. Which one gets precedence and how can I influence this?

Answer 1

minor-mode-map-alist is a variable defined in `C source code'.

Documentation:
Alist of keymaps to use for minor modes.
Each element looks like (VARIABLE . KEYMAP); KEYMAP is used to read
key sequences and look up bindings if VARIABLE's value is non-nil.
If two active keymaps bind the same key, the keymap appearing earlier
in the list takes precedence.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/24688860/324105 might also help.