[Tutor] key detection

[Alan Gauld]

On 05/05/15 22:30, Jim Mooney Py3.4.3winXP wrote:
> Can python detect a keypress?

That sounds simple but is actually quite tricky
since it's terminal dependent.

> like Javascript does. All I find are references using msvcrt, which is
> Msoft specific, or using tkinter - but I don't want a whacking big GUI,

You can also use curses on Unix like systems
which is CLI based. But it acts a bit like a GUI, you do need to 
initialize the framework ec.

It's described in the Event Driven Programming topic of my tutorial.

There are other  ways like using the low level C functions directly from 
the C libraries using ctypes, but that brings its own difficulties in 
converting Python data into C compatible types etc.

curses is the preferred option on Unix like systems.

There are some third party modules that try to address this in
a system independent manner, they can be found on PyPI but
I can't recommend any of them as I've not used them. I think
Fred Lundh created one such called, maybe, terminal?

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Alan G
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