stdin: processing characters

[Cameron Laird]

In article <2Bd4g.21380$tN3.16246 at newssvr27.news.prodigy.net>,
Edward Elliott  <nobody at 127.0.0.1> wrote:
>Kevin Simmons wrote:
>> I have a python script that prompts the user for input from stdin via a
>> menu. I want to process that input when the user types in two characters
>> and not have to have the user press <CR>. As a comparison, in the bash
>> shell one can use (read -n 2 -p "-->" CHOICE; case $CHOICE in...). Works
>> great and is very
>
>I did something like this a couple years ago, curses was the easiest way I
>found to do it.  It's pretty painless with the wrapper function, which
>restores your terminal on error/exit.
>

Kevin, the bad news is that curses() is as good as Python gets in
this regard.  For better or worse, to the best of my knowledge,
unextended Python caNOT implement bash's read.  Here's the closest
small approximation I know:

  import curses
  import os

  msvcrt = curses.initscr()
  msvcrt.addstr("-->")
  first = msvcrt.getch()
  second = msvcrt.getch()
  os.system("stty echo -nl")
  print "\nThe two characters are '%s' and '%s'." % (first, second)

I hope someone proves me wrong.