Python input single character without enter

14,393

Solution 1

You can define your own version of getch using the termios, sys and tty packages:

def getch():
    import termios
    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()

Solution 2

This is a tested (on RPi, Py 3) code that can read a specified length of chars without need to hit Enter button

But consider one thing :

This must run on terminal otherwise raises an error

import termios, sys , tty
def _getch():
   fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
   old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
   try:
      tty.setraw(fd)
      ch = sys.stdin.read(1)     #This number represents the length
   finally:
      termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
   return ch
getch = _getch()
print(getch)
Share:
14,393

Related videos on Youtube

ArgoLake
Author by

ArgoLake

Updated on September 15, 2022

Comments

  • ArgoLake
    ArgoLake over 1 year

    What I am trying to do is make a simple pi memorization game in Python. What I need is a way to get input from the user without having to press 'enter' after every character. It sounds like I need something like getch, but I can't get it to work. I got a getch-like function from here: https://gist.github.com/chao787/2652257#file-getch-py. I don't really understand anything that's in there. When I do 'x = getch.getch()' it says "AttributeError: '_Getch' object has no attribute 'getch'". It looks like msvcrt can do it for Windows, but I have a Mac. It also looks like curses is a thing that has getch, but it says I need to do initscr first, but then I get the error "File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/lib/python3.4/curses/__init__.py", line 30, in initscr fd=_sys.__stdout__.fileno()) _curses.error: setupterm: could not find terminal".

    This is my file just using input, where you would have to press enter every time (I actually put in 1000 digits, not an ellipsis).

    pi = '3.1415926535...'
    
    
    def main():
        print('Welcome to PiGame!')
        pigame()
        while True:
            yn = input('Play again? y/n ')
            if yn == 'y':
                pigame()
            else: return
    
    
    def pigame():
    
        n=0
    
        print('Go!')
    
    
        while n<=1000:
            x = input()
            if x == pi[n]:
                n += 1
            else:
                print('I\'m sorry. The next digit was '+pi[n]+'.')
                print('You got to '+str(n)+' digits!')
                return
        print('You got to 1000! Hooray!')
    
  • deathangel908
    deathangel908 over 8 years
    termios.error: (25, 'Inappropriate ioctl for device')
  • Yoni Baciu
    Yoni Baciu over 7 years
    needs to be return _getch() in the end (you forgot parenthesis)
  • user1067305
    user1067305 over 5 years
    Apparently termios does not exist on Windows system. Is there any way to adapt Term::ReadKey from perl which does work on Windows?