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Is there a way of reading one single character from the user input? For instance, they press one key at the terminal and it is returned (sort of like getch()). I know there’s a function in Windows for it, but I’d like something that is cross-platform.
Answer #1:
Here’s a link to a site that says how you can read a single character in Windows, Linux and OSX: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/134892/
class _Getch:
"""Gets a single character from standard input. Does not echo to the
screen."""
def __init__(self):
try:
self.impl = _GetchWindows()
except ImportError:
self.impl = _GetchUnix()
def __call__(self): return self.impl()
class _GetchUnix:
def __init__(self):
import tty, sys
def __call__(self):
import sys, tty, termios
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
class _GetchWindows:
def __init__(self):
import msvcrt
def __call__(self):
import msvcrt
return msvcrt.getch()
getch = _Getch()
Answer #2:
sys.stdin.read(1)
will basically read 1 byte from STDIN.
If you must use the method which does not wait for the n you can use this code as suggested in previous answer:
class _Getch:
"""Gets a single character from standard input. Does not echo to the screen."""
def __init__(self):
try:
self.impl = _GetchWindows()
except ImportError:
self.impl = _GetchUnix()
def __call__(self): return self.impl()
class _GetchUnix:
def __init__(self):
import tty, sys
def __call__(self):
import sys, tty, termios
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
class _GetchWindows:
def __init__(self):
import msvcrt
def __call__(self):
import msvcrt
return msvcrt.getch()
getch = _Getch()
(taken from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/134892/)
Answer #3:
The ActiveState recipe quoted verbatim in two answers is over-engineered. It can be boiled down to this:
def _find_getch():
try:
import termios
except ImportError:
# Non-POSIX. Return msvcrt's (Windows') getch.
import msvcrt
return msvcrt.getch
# POSIX system. Create and return a getch that manipulates the tty.
import sys, tty
def _getch():
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
try:
tty.setraw(fd)
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
return _getch
getch = _find_getch()
Answer #4:
Also worth trying is the readchar library, which is in part based on the ActiveState recipe mentioned in other answers.
Installation:
pip install readchar
Usage:
import readchar
print("Reading a char:")
print(repr(readchar.readchar()))
print("Reading a key:")
print(repr(readchar.readkey()))
Tested on Windows and Linux with Python 2.7.
On Windows, only keys which map to letters or ASCII control codes are supported (Backspace, Enter, Esc, Tab, Ctrl+letter). On GNU/Linux (depending on exact terminal, perhaps?) you also get Insert, Delete, Pg Up, Pg Dn, Home, End and F n keys… but then, there’s issues separating these special keys from an Esc.
Caveat: Like with most (all?) answers in here, signal keys like Ctrl+C, Ctrl+D and Ctrl+Z are caught and returned (as 'x03', 'x04' and 'x1a' respectively); your program can be come difficult to abort.
Answer #5:
An alternative method:
import os
import sys
import termios
import fcntl
def getch():
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
oldterm = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
newattr = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
newattr[3] = newattr[3] & ~termios.ICANON & ~termios.ECHO
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSANOW, newattr)
oldflags = fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_GETFL)
fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, oldflags | os.O_NONBLOCK)
try:
while 1:
try:
c = sys.stdin.read(1)
break
except IOError: pass
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSAFLUSH, oldterm)
fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, oldflags)
return c
From this blog post.
Answer #6:
The (currently) top-ranked answer (with the ActiveState code) is overly complicated. I don’t see a reason to use classes when a mere function should suffice. Below are two implementations that accomplish the same thing but with more readable code.
Both of these implementations:
- work just fine in Python 2 or Python 3
- work on Windows, OSX, and Linux
- read just one byte (i.e., they don’t wait for a newline)
- don’t depend on any external libraries
- are self-contained (no code outside of the function definition)
Version 1: readable and simple
def getChar():
try:
# for Windows-based systems
import msvcrt # If successful, we are on Windows
return msvcrt.getch()
except ImportError:
# for POSIX-based systems (with termios & tty support)
import tty, sys, termios # raises ImportError if unsupported
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
oldSettings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
try:
tty.setcbreak(fd)
answer = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, oldSettings)
return answer
Version 2: avoid repeated imports and exception handling:
[EDIT] I missed one advantage of the ActiveState code. If you plan to read characters multiple times, that code avoids the (negligible) cost of repeating the Windows import and the ImportError exception handling on Unix-like systems. While you probably should be more concerned about code readability than that negligible optimization, here is an alternative (it is similar to Louis’s answer, but getChar() is self-contained) that functions the same as the ActiveState code and is more readable:
def getChar():
# figure out which function to use once, and store it in _func
if "_func" not in getChar.__dict__:
try:
# for Windows-based systems
import msvcrt # If successful, we are on Windows
getChar._func=msvcrt.getch
except ImportError:
# for POSIX-based systems (with termios & tty support)
import tty, sys, termios # raises ImportError if unsupported
def _ttyRead():
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
oldSettings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
try:
tty.setcbreak(fd)
answer = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, oldSettings)
return answer
getChar._func=_ttyRead
return getChar._func()
Example code that exercises either of the getChar() versions above:
from __future__ import print_function # put at top of file if using Python 2
# Example of a prompt for one character of input
promptStr = "Please give me a character:"
responseStr = "Thank you for giving me a '{}'."
print(promptStr, end="n> ")
answer = getChar()
print("n")
print(responseStr.format(answer))
Answer #7:
This code, based off here, will correctly raise KeyboardInterrupt and EOFError if Ctrl+C or Ctrl+D are pressed.
Should work on Windows and Linux. An OS X version is available from the original source.
class _Getch:
"""Gets a single character from standard input. Does not echo to the screen."""
def __init__(self):
try:
self.impl = _GetchWindows()
except ImportError:
self.impl = _GetchUnix()
def __call__(self):
char = self.impl()
if char == 'x03':
raise KeyboardInterrupt
elif char == 'x04':
raise EOFError
return char
class _GetchUnix:
def __init__(self):
import tty
import sys
def __call__(self):
import sys
import tty
import termios
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
class _GetchWindows:
def __init__(self):
import msvcrt
def __call__(self):
import msvcrt
return msvcrt.getch()
getch = _Getch()
Answer #8:
Try using this: http://home.wlu.edu/~levys/software/kbhit.py
It’s non-blocking (that means that you can have a while loop and detect a key press without stopping it) and cross-platform.
import os
# Windows
if os.name == 'nt':
import msvcrt
# Posix (Linux, OS X)
else:
import sys
import termios
import atexit
from select import select
class KBHit:
def __init__(self):
'''Creates a KBHit object that you can call to do various keyboard things.'''
if os.name == 'nt':
pass
else:
# Save the terminal settings
self.fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
self.new_term = termios.tcgetattr(self.fd)
self.old_term = termios.tcgetattr(self.fd)
# New terminal setting unbuffered
self.new_term[3] = (self.new_term[3] & ~termios.ICANON & ~termios.ECHO)
termios.tcsetattr(self.fd, termios.TCSAFLUSH, self.new_term)
# Support normal-terminal reset at exit
atexit.register(self.set_normal_term)
def set_normal_term(self):
''' Resets to normal terminal. On Windows this is a no-op.
'''
if os.name == 'nt':
pass
else:
termios.tcsetattr(self.fd, termios.TCSAFLUSH, self.old_term)
def getch(self):
''' Returns a keyboard character after kbhit() has been called.
Should not be called in the same program as getarrow().
'''
s = ''
if os.name == 'nt':
return msvcrt.getch().decode('utf-8')
else:
return sys.stdin.read(1)
def getarrow(self):
''' Returns an arrow-key code after kbhit() has been called. Codes are
0 : up
1 : right
2 : down
3 : left
Should not be called in the same program as getch().
'''
if os.name == 'nt':
msvcrt.getch() # skip 0xE0
c = msvcrt.getch()
vals = [72, 77, 80, 75]
else:
c = sys.stdin.read(3)[2]
vals = [65, 67, 66, 68]
return vals.index(ord(c.decode('utf-8')))
def kbhit(self):
''' Returns True if keyboard character was hit, False otherwise.
'''
if os.name == 'nt':
return msvcrt.kbhit()
else:
dr,dw,de = select([sys.stdin], [], [], 0)
return dr != []
An example to use this:
import kbhit
kb = kbhit.KBHit()
while(True):
print("Key not pressed") #Do something
if kb.kbhit(): #If a key is pressed:
k_in = kb.getch() #Detect what key was pressed
print("You pressed ", k_in, "!") #Do something
kb.set_normal_term()
Or you could use the getch module from PyPi. But this would block the while loop
