Detecting ESCAPE key in python [duplicate]

Detecting ESCAPE key in python [duplicate] - python

I am trying to make a simple IRC client in Python (as kind of a project while I learn the language).
I have a loop that I use to receive and parse what the IRC server sends me, but if I use raw_input to input stuff, it stops the loop dead in its tracks until I input something (obviously).
How can I input something without the loop stopping?
(I don't think I need to post the code, I just want to input something without the while 1: loop stopping.)
I'm on Windows.

For Windows, console only, use the msvcrt module:
import msvcrt
num = 0
done = False
while not done:
print(num)
num += 1
if msvcrt.kbhit():
print "you pressed",msvcrt.getch(),"so now i will quit"
done = True
For Linux, this article describes the following solution, it requires the termios module:
import sys
import select
import tty
import termios
def isData():
return select.select([sys.stdin], [], [], 0) == ([sys.stdin], [], [])
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin)
try:
tty.setcbreak(sys.stdin.fileno())
i = 0
while 1:
print(i)
i += 1
if isData():
c = sys.stdin.read(1)
if c == '\x1b': # x1b is ESC
break
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
For cross platform, or in case you want a GUI as well, you can use Pygame:
import pygame
from pygame.locals import *
def display(str):
text = font.render(str, True, (255, 255, 255), (159, 182, 205))
textRect = text.get_rect()
textRect.centerx = screen.get_rect().centerx
textRect.centery = screen.get_rect().centery
screen.blit(text, textRect)
pygame.display.update()
pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode( (640,480) )
pygame.display.set_caption('Python numbers')
screen.fill((159, 182, 205))
font = pygame.font.Font(None, 17)
num = 0
done = False
while not done:
display( str(num) )
num += 1
pygame.event.pump()
keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
if keys[K_ESCAPE]:
done = True

This is the most awesome solution1 I've ever seen. Pasted here in case link goes down:
#!/usr/bin/env python
'''
A Python class implementing KBHIT, the standard keyboard-interrupt poller.
Works transparently on Windows and Posix (Linux, Mac OS X). Doesn't work
with IDLE.
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
'''
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 != []
# Test
if __name__ == "__main__":
kb = KBHit()
print('Hit any key, or ESC to exit')
while True:
if kb.kbhit():
c = kb.getch()
if ord(c) == 27: # ESC
break
print(c)
kb.set_normal_term()
1
Made by Simon D. Levy, part of a compilation of software he has written and released under the Gnu Lesser General Public License.

Here a solution that runs under linux and windows using a seperate thread:
import sys
import threading
import time
import Queue
def add_input(input_queue):
while True:
input_queue.put(sys.stdin.read(1))
def foobar():
input_queue = Queue.Queue()
input_thread = threading.Thread(target=add_input, args=(input_queue,))
input_thread.daemon = True
input_thread.start()
last_update = time.time()
while True:
if time.time()-last_update>0.5:
sys.stdout.write(".")
last_update = time.time()
if not input_queue.empty():
print "\ninput:", input_queue.get()
foobar()

My favorite to get non-blocking input is using the python input() in a thread:
import threading
class KeyboardThread(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, input_cbk = None, name='keyboard-input-thread'):
self.input_cbk = input_cbk
super(KeyboardThread, self).__init__(name=name)
self.start()
def run(self):
while True:
self.input_cbk(input()) #waits to get input + Return
showcounter = 0 #something to demonstrate the change
def my_callback(inp):
#evaluate the keyboard input
print('You Entered:', inp, ' Counter is at:', showcounter)
#start the Keyboard thread
kthread = KeyboardThread(my_callback)
while True:
#the normal program executes without blocking. here just counting up
showcounter += 1
OS independent, only internal libraries, supports multi-character input

On Linux, here's a refactoring of mizipzor's code that makes this a little easier, in case you have to use this code in multiple places.
import sys
import select
import tty
import termios
class NonBlockingConsole(object):
def __enter__(self):
self.old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin)
tty.setcbreak(sys.stdin.fileno())
return self
def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin, termios.TCSADRAIN, self.old_settings)
def get_data(self):
if select.select([sys.stdin], [], [], 0) == ([sys.stdin], [], []):
return sys.stdin.read(1)
return False
Here's how to use this: This code will print a counter that keeps growing until you press ESC.
with NonBlockingConsole() as nbc:
i = 0
while 1:
print i
i += 1
if nbc.get_data() == '\x1b': # x1b is ESC
break

I think curses library can help.
import curses
import datetime
stdscr = curses.initscr()
curses.noecho()
stdscr.nodelay(1) # set getch() non-blocking
stdscr.addstr(0,0,"Press \"p\" to show count, \"q\" to exit...")
line = 1
try:
while 1:
c = stdscr.getch()
if c == ord('p'):
stdscr.addstr(line,0,"Some text here")
line += 1
elif c == ord('q'): break
"""
Do more things
"""
finally:
curses.endwin()

.... backing to the initial question ...
i am learning python too, it cost me many documentation and examples readings and head crackings... but i think i reached an easy, simple, short and compatible solution... using just input, lists and threads
'''
what i thought:
- input() in another thread
- that were filling a global strings list
- strings are being popped in the main thread
'''
import threading
consoleBuffer = []
def consoleInput(myBuffer):
while True:
myBuffer.append(input())
threading.Thread(target=consoleInput, args=(consoleBuffer,), daemon=True).start() # start the thread
import time # just to demonstrate non blocking parallel processing
while True:
time.sleep(2) # avoid 100% cpu
print(time.time()) # just to demonstrate non blocking parallel processing
while consoleBuffer:
print(repr(consoleBuffer.pop(0)))
until this is the simplest and compatible way i found, be aware by default stdin stdout and stderr share the same terminal so "local echo" of your input may look inconsistent if something is printed on console while you are typing, however after pressing enter the typed string is received well... if you don't want/like this behavior find a way to separate input/output areas like redirections, or try another solution like curses, tkinter, pygame, etc.
BONUS: the ctrl-c keystroke can be easily handled with
try:
# do whatever
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print('cancelled by user') or exit() # overload

I'd do what Mickey Chan said, but I'd use unicurses instead of normal curses.
Unicurses is universal (works on all or at least almost all operating systems)

If you just want a single "escape" from a loop, you can intercept the Ctrl-C signal.
This is cross-platform and very simple!
import signal
import sys
def signal_handler(sig, frame):
print('You pressed Ctrl+C!')
sys.exit(0)
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
while True:
# do your work here

With python3.3 and above you can use the asyncio module as mentioned in this answer.
You will have to re factor your code though to work with asyncio.
Prompt for user input using python asyncio.create_server instance

Since I found one of the answers above helpful, here's an example of a similar approach. This code creates a metronome effect while taking input.
The difference is this code uses a closure instead of a class, which feels a little more straight-forward to me. This example also incorporates a flag to kill the thread via my_thread.stop = True, but without using a global variable. I do this by (ab)using the fact that python functions are objects and thus can be monkey-patched, even from inside themselves.
Note: Stopping threads should be done with caution. If your thread has data that needs some kind of clean up process or if the thread spawned its own threads, this approach will unceremoniously kill those processes.
# Begin metronome sound while accepting input.
# After pressing enter, turn off the metronome sound.
# Press enter again to restart the process.
import threading
import time
import winsound # Only on Windows
beat_length = 1 # Metronome speed
def beat_thread():
beat_thread.stop = False # Monkey-patched flag
frequency, duration = 2500, 10
def run(): # Closure
while not beat_thread.stop: # Run until flag is True
winsound.Beep(frequency, duration)
time.sleep(beat_length - duration/1000)
threading.Thread(target=run).start()
while True:
beat_thread()
input("Input with metronome. Enter to finish.\n")
beat_thread.stop = True # Flip monkey-patched flag
input("Metronome paused. Enter to continue.\n\n")

The following is an class wrapper around one of the above solutions:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import threading
import queue
class NonBlockingInput:
def __init__(self, exit_condition):
self.exit_condition = exit_condition
self.input_queue = queue.Queue()
self.input_thread = threading.Thread(target=self.read_kbd_input, args=(), daemon=True)
self.input_thread.start()
def read_kbd_input(self):
done_queueing_input = False
while not done_queueing_input:
console_input = input()
self.input_queue.put(console_input)
if console_input.strip() == self.exit_condition:
done_queueing_input = True
def input_queued(self):
return_value = False
if self.input_queue.qsize() > 0:
return_value = True
return return_value
def input_get(self):
return_value = ""
if self.input_queue.qsize() > 0:
return_value = self.input_queue.get()
return return_value
if __name__ == '__main__':
NON_BLOCK_INPUT = NonBlockingInput(exit_condition='quit')
DONE_PROCESSING = False
INPUT_STR = ""
while not DONE_PROCESSING:
if NON_BLOCK_INPUT.input_queued():
INPUT_STR = NON_BLOCK_INPUT.input_get()
if INPUT_STR.strip() == "quit":
DONE_PROCESSING = True
else:
print("{}".format(INPUT_STR))

I was writing a program using Linux that has a bigger mainloop that requires regular updates but also needs to read characters in a non-blocking way. But resetting the display, also loses the input buffer.
This is the solution that I came up with. Every time after the screen is updated it sets the terminal to non-blocking, waits for the mainloop to pass and then interprets stdin.
After that the terminal gets reset to the original settings.
#!/usr/bin/python3
import sys, select, os, tty, termios, time
i = 0
l = True
oldtty = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin)
stdin_no = sys.stdin.fileno()
while l:
os.system('clear')
print("I'm doing stuff. Press a 'q' to stop me!")
print(i)
tty.setcbreak(stdin_no)
time.sleep(0.5)
if sys.stdin in select.select([sys.stdin], [], [], 0.0)[0]:
line = sys.stdin.read(1)
print (line, len(line))
if "q" in line:
l = False
else:
pass
termios.tcsetattr(stdin_no, termios.TCSADRAIN, oldtty)
i += 1

The Solution by marco is the right idea, but I decided to simplify it to the minimal possible code without any classes. Also it actually shows you how to get the user input with the queue library instead of just printing it:
import time, threading, queue
def collect(que):
msg = input()
que.put(msg)
que = queue.Queue()
thread = threading.Thread(target=collect, args=[que])
thread.start()
while thread.is_alive():
time.sleep(1)
print("The main thread continues while we wait for you...")
msg = que.get()
print('You typed:', msg)
In this example, the main thread continues indefinitely (processing data or whatever), while periodically checking to see if the user has input any data in the spawned thread. When that happens it returns the user input.
I've successfully used this idea in my own script to create a debugger, where I can type "print variable name" at any point during the main loop and it gives me the values in real time without stopping.

My example below does allow for non-blocking reads from stdin under both Windows (only tested under Windows 10) and Linux without requiring external dependencies or using threading. It works for copypasted text, it disables ECHO, so it could be used for e.g. some sort of custom UI and uses a loop, so it would be easy to process anything that was input into it.
With the above in mind, the example is meant for an interactive TTY, not piped input.
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys
if(sys.platform == "win32"):
import msvcrt
import ctypes
from ctypes import wintypes
kernel32 = ctypes.windll.kernel32
oldStdinMode = ctypes.wintypes.DWORD()
# Windows standard handle -10 refers to stdin
kernel32.GetConsoleMode(kernel32.GetStdHandle(-10), ctypes.byref(oldStdinMode))
# Disable ECHO and line-mode
# https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/console/setconsolemode
kernel32.SetConsoleMode(kernel32.GetStdHandle(-10), 0)
else:
# POSIX uses termios
import select, termios, tty
oldStdinMode = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin)
_ = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin)
# Disable ECHO and line-mode
_[3] = _[3] & ~(termios.ECHO | termios.ICANON)
# Don't block on stdin.read()
_[6][termios.VMIN] = 0
_[6][termios.VTIME] = 0
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin, termios.TCSAFLUSH, _)
def readStdin():
if(sys.platform == "win32"):
return msvcrt.getwch() if(msvcrt.kbhit()) else ""
else:
return sys.stdin.read(1)
def flushStdin():
if(sys.platform == "win32"):
kernel32.FlushConsoleInputBuffer(kernel32.GetStdHandle(-10))
else:
termios.tcflush(sys.stdin, termios.TCIFLUSH)
try:
userInput = ""
print("Type something: ", end = "", flush = True)
flushStdin()
while 1:
peek = readStdin()
if(len(peek) > 0):
# Stop input on NUL, Ctrl+C, ESC, carriage return, newline, backspace, EOF, EOT
if(peek not in ["\0", "\3", "\x1b", "\r", "\n", "\b", "\x1a", "\4"]):
userInput += peek
# This is just to show the user what they typed.
# Can be skipped, if one doesn't need this.
sys.stdout.write(peek)
sys.stdout.flush()
else:
break
flushStdin()
print(f"\nuserInput length: {len(userInput)}, contents: \"{userInput}\"")
finally:
if(sys.platform == "win32"):
kernel32.SetConsoleMode(kernel32.GetStdHandle(-10), oldStdinMode)
else:
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin, termios.TCSAFLUSH, oldStdinMode)

Related

How to run a function/thread in a different terminal window in python?

I have a program like this:
from threading import Thread
def foo1(arg):
print("foo1 >>> Something")
input("foo1 >>> Enter Something")
...
def foo2(arg):
print("foo2 >>> Something")
input("foo2 >>> Enter Something")
...
def main():
th1 = Thread(target= foo1)
th1.start()
th2 = Thread(target= foo2)
th2.start()
This program runs both the functions(foo1 and foo2) in the same terminal window. Can I in some way run them in a different terminal window. What I don't wish is to re-run the program. The reason is that they print and take input at the same place and same time. I don't want. Any method?

What you are trying to accomplish isn't possible with just threads, when you create a new Thread it shares all the variables with other threads in your program, including sys.stdout / sys.stdin.
Normally you don't have to worry about PIPES in python programs because it takes care of it for you. print sends the text to sys.stdout and input grabs text from sys.stdin (and error messages are sent to sys.stderr)
So running one program in two terminal windows would mean you would have to have more then one input/output streams, to which there are two solutions:
run a completely separate program with subprocess.Popen like the other fellow described and figure out how to bridge information across the two which is a real pain.
or 2. create your own terminal window with something like tkinter, which is difficult from scratch but luckily IDLE has the majority of the code available in the standard library.
Here is an adapted version of PyShell from idlelib.PyShell to run a Thread instead of the interactive interpretive:
from idlelib import PyShell,EditorWindow
import threading,sys
try:
import tkinter as tk #python 3.X
except ImportError:
import Tkinter as tk #python 2
import tkMessageBox as messagebox
tk.messagebox = messagebox
class ThreadShell(PyShell.PyShell):
"""mostly copied from idlelib.PyShell module but adapted to work with threads"""
#__adapted_by__ = "Tadhg McDonald-Jensen"
def __init__(self, tk_root,target=None):
#not sure exactly what the FileList object is for but it is required by the shell
flist = PyShell.PyShellFileList(tk_root)
super(ThreadShell,self).__init__(flist)
#internal event flag for input, allows thread waiting for input to wait until a tk event handles it
self.__input_flag = threading.Event()
#target is stored and called in .run_command() which also deals with finishing the shell
self.target = target
self.thread = threading.Thread(target=self.run_command)
#tk_root.after makes the .start method call when the program starts (after 0 miliseconds)
tk_root.after(0,self.start)
def start(self):
"""starts executing the Thread"""
super(ThreadShell,self).beginexecuting()
try:
self.thread.start()
except RuntimeError:
self.executing = 0
self.canceled = 0
#self.top.quit() #this causes double deletion warnings with better Implementation of mainloop
beginexecuting = start
def run_command(self):
"""calls target from constructor with self as argument then cleans up shell"""
if self.target:
self.target(self)
self.prompt_exit()
self.executing = 0
self.canceled = 0
try:
self.text.after(1,self.close)
except RuntimeError:
pass #tkinter has issues with changing threads so often after closing one shell others will throw this error
def printf(self,*stuff,**kw):
"""works just like python 3.x print function but writes to shell's .stdout file"""
if self.executing:
## if USING_OLD_METHOD: #Pretty sure this would do exact same thing
## kw.setdefault("file",self.stdout)
## print(*stuff,**kw), self.resetoutput()
## return
sep = kw.get("sep"," ")
end = kw.get("end","\n")
text = sep.join(stuff) + end
self.stdout.write(text)
self.resetoutput()
def input(self,prompt="",timeout=None):
"""python 2 equivelent to raw_input or py 3+ input
Prompts user for input and freezes thread until input is given
Will return "" if .executing is False or it timed out from optional timeout argument"""
if self.executing or self.closing:
if prompt:
self.stdout.write(prompt)
self.__in_buffer = ""
self.__input_flag.clear()
self.reading=True
self.__input_flag.wait(timeout)
#input is inserted into .__in_buffer by other events
#then set __input_flag so that it can be delivered to thread
self.reading = False
return self.__in_buffer.strip("\n")
else:
raise RuntimeError("cannot take input after finished")
def prompt_exit(self):
"""writes press enter to quit" to the console colour then waits for input"""
self.executing = False
self.closing = True
self.console.write("\n press enter to quit")
self.input()
def join_thread(self,timeout=None):
"""sets .executing label to False then waits to join thead,
returns True if thread finished or False if timeout activated"""
self.executing = False
self.closing = True
if self.thread:
self.thread.join(timeout)
return not self.thread.is_alive()
def _close(self):
"Extend EditorWindow._close(), joins thread to close it"
# Restore std streams
sys.stdout = self.save_stdout
sys.stderr = self.save_stderr
sys.stdin = self.save_stdin
# Break cycles
self.interp = None
self.console = None
self.flist.pyshell = None
self.history = None
EditorWindow.EditorWindow._close(self)
self.join_thread()
def stop_readline(self):
self.__in_buffer = ""
self.__input_flag.set()
def update_in(self):
"""updates input from user, I think some of the labels are probably unnecessary but it is easier to leave it alone"""
line = self.text.get("iomark", "end-1c")
if len(line) == 0: # may be EOF if we quit our mainloop with Ctrl-C
line = "\n"
self.resetoutput()
if self.canceled:
self.canceled = 0
if self.endoffile:
self.endoffile = 0
line = ""
self.__in_buffer = line
self.__input_flag.set()
def cancel_callback(self, event=None):
try:
if self.text.compare("sel.first", "!=", "sel.last"):
return # Active selection -- always use default binding
except:
pass
if not (self.executing or self.reading):
return "break"
self.endoffile = 0
self.canceled = 1
if self.reading:
self.update_in()
return "break"
def eof_callback(self, event):
if self.executing and not self.reading:
return # Let the default binding (delete next char) take over
if not (self.text.compare("iomark", "==", "insert") and
self.text.compare("insert", "==", "end-1c")):
return # Let the default binding (delete next char) take over
if not self.executing:
self.resetoutput()
self.close()
else:
self.canceled = 0
self.endoffile = 1
self.update_in()
return "break"
def enter_callback(self, event):
"""called when the enter/return key is pressed,
only the recursive self.top.mainloop() / self.top.quit() had to be changed for support"""
# it is very long to copy/paste for the one line change, so I override the method temporarily
save = self.top.quit
self.top.quit = self.update_in
super(ThreadShell,self).enter_callback(event)
self.top.quit = save
#stupid module depends on this being set from the main function, so it needs to be done manually
PyShell.use_subprocess = True
#this defines the root tkinter window and sets it up
root = tk.Tk()
EditorWindow.fixwordbreaks(root)
root.withdraw()
#I need this to work on my mac, not sure if there are other OS specific stuff that should be included
try:
from idlelib import macosxSupport
macosxSupport.setupApp(root, None)
except (ImportError,AttributeError):
pass
##!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And This Is The Part You Need To Worry About !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!##
switch = threading.Event()
switch.clear()
def foo(shell):
global x
x = shell.input("enter a message: ")
switch.set()
shell.printf("message sent")
def foo2(shell):
shell.printf("waiting for message...")
while shell.executing and not switch.is_set():
switch.wait(2) # by using shell.executing in the loop it will occasionally check
# if the program should quit because the window was closed
if shell.executing:
shell.printf("message recieved: ",x)
shell1 = ThreadShell(root,foo)
shell2 = ThreadShell(root,foo2)
first_time = True
while shell1.executing or shell2.executing or first_time:
first_time = False
root.mainloop()
root.destroy()

#!/usr/bin/env python
"""Show messages in two new console windows simultaneously."""
import sys
import platform
from subprocess import Popen
messages = 'This is Console1', 'This is Console2'
def randomFunction():
return "import sys; print(sys.argv[1]); input('Press Enter..')"
# define a command that starts new terminal
if platform.system() == "Windows":
new_window_command = "cmd.exe /c start".split()
else: #XXX this can be made more portable
new_window_command = "x-terminal-emulator -e".split()
# open new consoles, display messages
echo = [sys.executable, "-c",randomFunction()
]
processes = [Popen(new_window_command + echo + [msg]) for msg in messages]
# wait for the windows to be closed
for proc in processes:
proc.wait()

Find working solution for your problem, I haven't used thread, but can be done. And this solution is motivated from solution provided by "Miodrag Novakovic"
You have to change few paths as per your env. Below code is tested on windows
test_code.py -
import sys
import platform
from subprocess import Popen
messages = 'This is Console1', 'This is Console2'
def foo1():
print "In foo1"
i = input("Enter Something - ")
print i
input("Enter to exit")
def foo2():
print "In foo2"
i = input("Enter Something - ")
print i
input("Enter to exit")
def run_foo1():
print("foo1 >>> Something")
return "import sys; sys.path.append('path_to_your_program_folder'); from test_code import foo1; foo1()"
def run_foo2():
print("foo2 >>> Something")
return "import sys; sys.path.append('path_to_your_program_folder'); from test_code import foo2; foo2()"
# define a command that starts new terminal
if platform.system() == "Windows":
new_window_command = "cmd.exe /c start".split()
else: #XXX this can be made more portable
new_window_command = "x-terminal-emulator -e".split()
if __name__ == '__main__':
# open new consoles, display messages
echos = [[sys.executable, "-c",run_foo1()],
[sys.executable, "-c",run_foo2()]
]
processes = [Popen(new_window_command + echo) for echo in echos]
# wait for the windows to be closed
for proc in processes:
proc.wait()

Does `input()` Python function has the characters like GNU read? [duplicate]

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.

Here's a link to the ActiveState Recipes site that says how you can read a single character in Windows, Linux and OSX:
    getch()-like unbuffered character reading from stdin on both Windows and Unix
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()

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/)

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()

Worth trying is the readchar library, which is in part based on the ActiveState recipe mentioned in other answers (but has come a long way since).
Installation:
python -m pip install readchar
Usage:
import readchar
print('Reading a char:')
print(repr(readchar.readchar()))
print('Reading a key:')
print(repr(readchar.readkey()))
This was tested on Windows and Linux with Python 3.9. It should also work in PyCharm terminal.
Keycodes are not always the same between Windows and Linux, but the library provides platform-specific definitions like readchar.key.F1 to help with that.
Since Linux reports most special keys as escape sequences (starting with \x1b), readkey() gets confused if you hit the actual Escape key (reported by the terminal as a solitary \x1b). This is unfortunately a common Unix problem, with no truly reliable solution.
Note that while readkey raises KeyboardInterrupt on Ctrl+C (see readchar.config), other Linux signal keys (e.g. Ctrl+D and Ctrl+Z) are caught and returned (as '\x04' and '\x1a' respectively), which may or may not be desirable.
For an input prompt-like functionality similar to Python's input(), consider this issue.

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.

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))

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()

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

The answers here were informative, however I also wanted a way to get key presses asynchronously and fire off key presses in separate events, all in a thread-safe, cross-platform way. PyGame was also too bloated for me. So I made the following (in Python 2.7 but I suspect it's easily portable), which I figured I'd share here in case it was useful for anyone else. I stored this in a file named keyPress.py.
class _Getch:
"""Gets a single character from standard input. Does not echo to the
screen. From http://code.activestate.com/recipes/134892/"""
def __init__(self):
try:
self.impl = _GetchWindows()
except ImportError:
try:
self.impl = _GetchMacCarbon()
except(AttributeError, ImportError):
self.impl = _GetchUnix()
def __call__(self): return self.impl()
class _GetchUnix:
def __init__(self):
import tty, sys, termios # import termios now or else you'll get the Unix version on the Mac
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()
class _GetchMacCarbon:
"""
A function which returns the current ASCII key that is down;
if no ASCII key is down, the null string is returned. The
page http://www.mactech.com/macintosh-c/chap02-1.html was
very helpful in figuring out how to do this.
"""
def __init__(self):
import Carbon
Carbon.Evt #see if it has this (in Unix, it doesn't)
def __call__(self):
import Carbon
if Carbon.Evt.EventAvail(0x0008)[0]==0: # 0x0008 is the keyDownMask
return ''
else:
#
# The event contains the following info:
# (what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
#
# The message (msg) contains the ASCII char which is
# extracted with the 0x000000FF charCodeMask; this
# number is converted to an ASCII character with chr() and
# returned
#
(what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
return chr(msg & 0x000000FF)
import threading
# From https://stackoverflow.com/a/2022629/2924421
class Event(list):
def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
for f in self:
f(*args, **kwargs)
def __repr__(self):
return "Event(%s)" % list.__repr__(self)
def getKey():
inkey = _Getch()
import sys
for i in xrange(sys.maxint):
k=inkey()
if k<>'':break
return k
class KeyCallbackFunction():
callbackParam = None
actualFunction = None
def __init__(self, actualFunction, callbackParam):
self.actualFunction = actualFunction
self.callbackParam = callbackParam
def doCallback(self, inputKey):
if not self.actualFunction is None:
if self.callbackParam is None:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,))
else:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,self.callbackParam))
callbackFunctionThread.daemon = True
callbackFunctionThread.start()
class KeyCapture():
gotKeyLock = threading.Lock()
gotKeys = []
gotKeyEvent = threading.Event()
keyBlockingSetKeyLock = threading.Lock()
addingEventsLock = threading.Lock()
keyReceiveEvents = Event()
keysGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysGot = []
keyBlockingKeyLockLossy = threading.Lock()
keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
keyBlockingEventLossy = threading.Event()
keysBlockingGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysBlockingGot = []
keyBlockingGotEvent = threading.Event()
wantToStopLock = threading.Lock()
wantToStop = False
stoppedLock = threading.Lock()
stopped = True
isRunningEvent = False
getKeyThread = None
keyFunction = None
keyArgs = None
# Begin capturing keys. A seperate thread is launched that
# captures key presses, and then these can be received via get,
# getAsync, and adding an event via addEvent. Note that this
# will prevent the system to accept keys as normal (say, if
# you are in a python shell) because it overrides that key
# capturing behavior.
# If you start capture when it's already been started, a
# InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
# will be thrown
# Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
#
# 1: Any calls to get() that are waiting, with lossy on, will return
# that key
# 2: It will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy
# off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
# 3: All events will be fired with that key as their input
# 4: It will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that list
# will be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync().
# get() call with it, aand add it to the getAsync() list.
def startCapture(self, keyFunction=None, args=None):
# Make sure we aren't already capturing keys
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
if not self.stopped:
self.stoppedLock.release()
raise InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
return
self.stopped = False
self.stoppedLock.release()
# If we have captured before, we need to allow the get() calls to actually
# wait for key presses now by clearing the event
if self.keyBlockingEventLossy.is_set():
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
# Have one function that we call every time a key is captured, intended for stopping capture
# as desired
self.keyFunction = keyFunction
self.keyArgs = args
# Begin capturing keys (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadProcessKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
# Process key captures (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadStoreKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
def capturing(self):
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
isCapturing = not self.stopped
self.stoppedLock.release()
return isCapturing
# Stops the thread that is capturing keys on the first opporunity
# has to do so. It usually can't stop immediately because getting a key
# is a blocking process, so this will probably stop capturing after the
# next key is pressed.
#
# However, Sometimes if you call stopCapture it will stop before starting capturing the
# next key, due to multithreading race conditions. So if you want to stop capturing
# reliably, call stopCapture in a function added via addEvent. Then you are
# guaranteed that capturing will stop immediately after the rest of the callback
# functions are called (before starting to capture the next key).
def stopCapture(self):
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
self.wantToStop = True
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# Takes in a function that will be called every time a key is pressed (with that
# key passed in as the first paramater in that function)
def addEvent(self, keyPressEventFunction, args=None):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
callbackHolder = KeyCallbackFunction(keyPressEventFunction, args)
self.keyReceiveEvents.append(callbackHolder.doCallback)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def clearEvents(self):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents = Event()
self.addingEventsLock.release()
# Gets a key captured by this KeyCapture, blocking until a key is pressed.
# There is an optional lossy paramater:
# If True all keys before this call are ignored, and the next pressed key
# will be returned.
# If False this will return the oldest key captured that hasn't
# been returned by get yet. False is the default.
def get(self, lossy=False):
if lossy:
# Wait for the next key to be pressed
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.wait()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
keyReceived = self.keyBlockingKeyLossy
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
return keyReceived
else:
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) != 0:
readKey = self.keysBlockingGot.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 0:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.clear()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
return readKey
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
return None
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def clearGetList(self):
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot = []
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Gets a list of all keys pressed since the last call to getAsync, in order
# from first pressed, second pressed, .., most recent pressed
def getAsync(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
keysPressedList = list(self.keysGot)
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release()
return keysPressedList
def clearAsyncList(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release();
def _processKey(self, readKey):
# Append to list for GetKeyAsync
self.keysGotLock.acquire()
self.keysGot.append(readKey)
self.keysGotLock.release()
# Call lossy blocking key events
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = readKey
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
# Call non-lossy blocking key events
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot.append(readKey)
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 1:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Call events added by AddEvent
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents(readKey)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def _threadProcessKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.gotKeyEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.gotKeys) != 0:
readKey = self.gotKeys.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.gotKeys) == 0:
self.gotKeyEvent.clear()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
self._processKey(readKey)
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def _threadStoreKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Get a key
readKey = getKey()
# Run the potential shut down function
if not self.keyFunction is None:
self.keyFunction(readKey, self.keyArgs)
# Add the key to the list of pressed keys
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
self.gotKeys.append(readKey)
if len(self.gotKeys) == 1:
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# If we have reached here we stopped capturing
# All we need to do to clean up is ensure that
# all the calls to .get() now return None.
# To ensure no calls are stuck never returning,
# we will leave the event set so any tasks waiting
# for it immediately exit. This will be unset upon
# starting key capturing again.
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
# We also need to set this to True so we can start up
# capturing again.
self.stopped = True
self.stopped = True
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
self.stoppedLock.release()
The idea is that you can either simply call keyPress.getKey(), which will read a key from the keyboard, then return it.
If you want something more than that, I made a KeyCapture object. You can create one via something like keys = keyPress.KeyCapture().
Then there are three things you can do:
addEvent(functionName) takes in any function that takes in one parameter. Then every time a key is pressed, this function will be called with that key's string as it's input. These are ran in a separate thread, so you can block all you want in them and it won't mess up the functionality of the KeyCapturer nor delay the other events.
get() returns a key in the same blocking way as before. It is now needed here because the keys are being captured via the KeyCapture object now, so keyPress.getKey() would conflict with that behavior and both of them would miss some keys since only one key can be captured at a time. Also, say the user presses 'a', then 'b', you call get(), the user presses 'c'. That get() call will immediately return 'a', then if you call it again it will return 'b', then 'c'. If you call it again it will block until another key is pressed. This ensures that you don't miss any keys, in a blocking way if desired. So in this way it's a little different than keyPress.getKey() from before
If you want the behavior of getKey() back, get(lossy=True) is like get(), except that it only returns keys pressed after the call to get(). So in the above example, get() would block until the user presses 'c', and then if you call it again it will block until another key is pressed.
getAsync() is a little different. It's designed for something that does a lot of processing, then occasionally comes back and checks which keys were pressed. Thus getAsync() returns a list of all the keys pressed since the last call to getAsync(), in order from oldest key pressed to most recent key pressed. It also doesn't block, meaning that if no keys have been pressed since the last call to getAsync(), an empty [] will be returned.
To actually start capturing keys, you need to call keys.startCapture() with your keys object made above. startCapture is non-blocking, and simply starts one thread that just records the key presses, and another thread to process those key presses. There are two threads to ensure that the thread that records key presses doesn't miss any keys.
If you want to stop capturing keys, you can call keys.stopCapture() and it will stop capturing keys. However, since capturing a key is a blocking operation, the thread capturing keys might capture one more key after calling stopCapture().
To prevent this, you can pass in an optional parameter(s) into startCapture(functionName, args) of a function that just does something like checks if a key equals 'c' and then exits. It's important that this function does very little before, for example, a sleep here will cause us to miss keys.
However, if stopCapture() is called in this function, key captures will be stopped immediately, without trying to capture any more, and that all get() calls will be returned immediately, with None if no keys have been pressed yet.
Also, since get() and getAsync() store all the previous keys pressed (until you retrieve them), you can call clearGetList() and clearAsyncList() to forget the keys previously pressed.
Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
One call to get() that is waiting, with lossy on, will return
that key. The other waiting calls (if any) will continue waiting.
That key will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
All events will be fired with that key as their input
That key will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that lis twill be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync()
If all this is too much, here is an example use case:
import keyPress
import time
import threading
def KeyPressed(k, printLock):
printLock.acquire()
print "Event: " + k
printLock.release()
time.sleep(4)
printLock.acquire()
print "Event after delay: " + k
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlocking(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get()
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Block " + keyReceived
else:
print "Block None"
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlockingLossy(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get(lossy=True)
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Lossy: " + keyReceived
else:
print "Lossy: None"
printLock.release()
def CheckToClose(k, (keys, printLock)):
printLock.acquire()
print "Close: " + k
printLock.release()
if k == "c":
keys.stopCapture()
printLock = threading.Lock()
print "Press a key:"
print "You pressed: " + keyPress.getKey()
print ""
keys = keyPress.KeyCapture()
keys.addEvent(KeyPressed, printLock)
print "Starting capture"
keys.startCapture(CheckToClose, (keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlocking, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThread.start()
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlockingLossy, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.start()
while keys.capturing():
keysPressed = keys.getAsync()
printLock.acquire()
if keysPressed != []:
print "Async: " + str(keysPressed)
printLock.release()
time.sleep(1)
print "done capturing"
It is working well for me from the simple test I made, but I will happily take others feedback as well if there is something I missed.
I posted this here as well.

This might be a use case for a context manager. Leaving aside allowances for Windows OS, here's my suggestion:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# file: 'readchar.py'
"""
Implementation of a way to get a single character of input
without waiting for the user to hit <Enter>.
(OS is Linux, Ubuntu 14.04)
"""
import tty, sys, termios
class ReadChar():
def __enter__(self):
self.fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
self.old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(self.fd)
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return sys.stdin.read(1)
def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
termios.tcsetattr(self.fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, self.old_settings)
def test():
while True:
with ReadChar() as rc:
char = rc
if ord(char) <= 32:
print("You entered character with ordinal {}."\
.format(ord(char)))
else:
print("You entered character '{}'."\
.format(char))
if char in "^C^D":
sys.exit()
if __name__ == "__main__":
test()

If I'm doing something complicated I'll use curses to read keys. But a lot of times I just want a simple Python 3 script that uses the standard library and can read arrow keys, so I do this:
import sys, termios, tty
key_Enter = 13
key_Esc = 27
key_Up = '\033[A'
key_Dn = '\033[B'
key_Rt = '\033[C'
key_Lt = '\033[D'
fdInput = sys.stdin.fileno()
termAttr = termios.tcgetattr(0)
def getch():
tty.setraw(fdInput)
ch = sys.stdin.buffer.raw.read(4).decode(sys.stdin.encoding)
if len(ch) == 1:
if ord(ch) < 32 or ord(ch) > 126:
ch = ord(ch)
elif ord(ch[0]) == 27:
ch = '\033' + ch[1:]
termios.tcsetattr(fdInput, termios.TCSADRAIN, termAttr)
return ch

You could use click. It's well-tested and works on Linux, Mac & Windows.
import click
print('Continue? [yn] ')
c = click.getchar() # Gets a single character
if c == 'y':
print('We will go on')
elif c == 'n':
print('Abort!')
else:
print('Invalid input :(')

This is NON-BLOCKING, reads a key and and stores it in keypress.key.
import Tkinter as tk
class Keypress:
def __init__(self):
self.root = tk.Tk()
self.root.geometry('300x200')
self.root.bind('<KeyPress>', self.onKeyPress)
def onKeyPress(self, event):
self.key = event.char
def __eq__(self, other):
return self.key == other
def __str__(self):
return self.key
in your programm
keypress = Keypress()
while something:
do something
if keypress == 'c':
break
elif keypress == 'i':
print('info')
else:
print("i dont understand %s" % keypress)

The ActiveState's recipe seems to contain a little bug for "posix" systems that prevents Ctrl-C from interrupting (I'm using Mac). If I put the following code in my script:
while(True):
print(getch())
I will never be able to terminate the script with Ctrl-C, and I have to kill my terminal to escape.
I believe the following line is the cause, and it's also too brutal:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
Asides from that, package tty is not really needed, termios is enough to handle it.
Below is the improved code that works for me (Ctrl-C will interrupt), with the extra getche function that echo the char as you type:
if sys.platform == 'win32':
import msvcrt
getch = msvcrt.getch
getche = msvcrt.getche
else:
import sys
import termios
def __gen_ch_getter(echo):
def __fun():
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
oldattr = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
newattr = oldattr[:]
try:
if echo:
# disable ctrl character printing, otherwise, backspace will be printed as "^?"
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHOCTL)
else:
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHO)
newattr[3] &= lflag
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, newattr)
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
if echo and ord(ch) == 127: # backspace
# emulate backspace erasing
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/47962872/404271
sys.stdout.write('\b \b')
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, oldattr)
return ch
return __fun
getch = __gen_ch_getter(False)
getche = __gen_ch_getter(True)
References:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/getch

Try this with pygame:
import pygame
pygame.init() // eliminate error, pygame.error: video system not initialized
keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
if keys[pygame.K_SPACE]:
d = "space key"
print "You pressed the", d, "."

A comment in one of the other answers mentioned cbreak mode, which is important for Unix implementations because you generally don't want ^C (KeyboardError) to be consumed by getchar (as it will when you set the terminal to raw mode, as done by most other answers).
Another important detail is that if you're looking to read one character and not one byte, you should read 4 bytes from the input stream, as that's the maximum number of bytes a single character will consist of in UTF-8 (Python 3+). Reading only a single byte will produce unexpected results for multi-byte characters such as keypad arrows.
Here's my changed implementation for Unix:
import contextlib
import os
import sys
import termios
import tty
_MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH = 4
#contextlib.contextmanager
def _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
"""
A context manager that saves the tty flags of a file descriptor upon
entering and restores them upon exiting.
"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(file_descriptor)
try:
yield
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(file_descriptor, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
def get_character(file=sys.stdin):
"""
Read a single character from the given input stream (defaults to sys.stdin).
"""
file_descriptor = file.fileno()
with _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
tty.setcbreak(file_descriptor)
return os.read(file_descriptor, _MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH)

The curses package in python can be used to enter "raw" mode for character input from the terminal with just a few statements. Curses' main use is to take over the screen for output, which may not be what you want. This code snippet uses print() statements instead, which are usable, but you must be aware of how curses changes line endings attached to output.
#!/usr/bin/python3
# Demo of single char terminal input in raw mode with the curses package.
import sys, curses
def run_one_char(dummy):
'Run until a carriage return is entered'
char = ' '
print('Welcome to curses', flush=True)
while ord(char) != 13:
char = one_char()
def one_char():
'Read one character from the keyboard'
print('\r? ', flush= True, end = '')
## A blocking single char read in raw mode.
char = sys.stdin.read(1)
print('You entered %s\r' % char)
return char
## Must init curses before calling any functions
curses.initscr()
## To make sure the terminal returns to its initial settings,
## and to set raw mode and guarantee cleanup on exit.
curses.wrapper(run_one_char)
print('Curses be gone!')

TL;DR: here is your no-dependencies-crossplatform maximum density copy-pasta
I know I was looking for that ☝️. You came here from google and want something that will just work without pip install this-and-that? I'm fairly sure this solution will continue working for a long time.
Example use
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just normal key like a
'a'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # a but its shift or capslock
'A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just bare enter
'\r'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # literal ESC key
'\x1b'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on linux
'\x1b[A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on windows
'àK'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # some really obscure key-combo. still works.
'\x1b[19;6~'
Crossplatform solution, no external dependencies
Scroll for more detailed answer at the end with sane indentation and commenting. This is maximum density preview for easy copy-pasting. Just call getch_but_it_actually_works()
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win(): return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char): return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
try: msvcrt.ungetwch("a")
except OSError: return msvcrt.getwch()
else: _ = msvcrt.getwch(); return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()); tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings); return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char): return True if char == "\x1b" else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()); os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False)
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1): buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True); termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump: return buffer_dump
else: return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_win, _char_can_be_escape_win, _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios, tty, sys
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_nix, _char_can_be_escape_nix, _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
wchar = read_one_wdchar()
if char_can_escape(wchar): dump = dump_key_buffer(); return wchar + dump
else: return wchar
The long answer, code with comments and sane indentation
Here is the long answer with all the comments. Still no dependencies.
This will in all likelihood work for long time on both linux and windows. No external dependencies, only built-ins.
It will also deal with edge cases like hitting arrow keys or something obscure like <ctrl + shift + f12> which will produce long ANSI escape sequence on linux and something else on windows. It will capture things like <ctrl+x> or <ctrl+z> or tab or F1-12 as single input
I have come back to this post literally dozens of times of the years so now it is time for me to give back the two cents and interest. Below is the fully commented code.
The example is somewhat long but you can skip reading most of it. The relevant bit is at the very end, you can just copy-paste the entire thing.
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False # \x00 is null character
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
"""If piece of multipart keycode in buffer, return it. Else return None"""
try: # msvcrt.kbhit wont work with msvcrt.getwch
msvcrt.ungetwch("a") # check buffer status by ungetching wchr
except OSError: # ungetch fails > something in buffer so >
return msvcrt.getwch() # return the buffer note: win multipart keys
else: # are always 2 parts. if ungetwch does not fail
_ = msvcrt.getwch() # clean up and return empty string
return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # set raw mode to catch raw key w/o enter
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char == "\x1b" else False # "\x1b" is literal esc-key
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
"""If parts of multipart keycode in buffer, return them. Otherwise None"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # raw to read single key w/o enter
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False) # dont block for empty buffer
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1):
buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True) # restore normal settings
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump:
return buffer_dump
else:
return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_win
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_win
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios
import tty
import sys
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_nix
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_nix
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
"""Returns a printable character or a keycode corresponding to special key
like arrow or insert. Compatible with windows and linux, no external libs
except for builtins. Uses different builtins for windows and linux.
This function is more accurately called:
"get_wide_character_or_keycode_if_the_key_was_nonprintable()"
e.g.:
* returns "e" if e was pressed
* returns "E" if shift or capslock was on
* returns "x1b[19;6~'" for ctrl + shift + F8 on unix
You can use string.isprintable() if you need to sometimes print the output
and sometimes use it for menu control and such. Printing raw ansi escape
codes can cause your terminal to do things like move cursor three rows up.
Enter will return "\ r" on all platforms (without the space seen here)
as the enter key will produce carriage return, but windows and linux
interpret it differently in different contexts on higher level
"""
wchar = read_one_wdchar() # get first char from key press or key combo
if char_can_escape(wchar): # if char is escapecode, more may be waiting
dump = dump_key_buffer() # dump buffer to check if more were waiting.
return wchar + dump # return escape+buffer. buff could be just ""
else: # if buffer was empty then we return a single
return wchar # key like "e" or "\x1b" for the ESC button

I believe that this is one the most elegant solution.
import os
if os.name == 'nt':
import msvcrt
def getch():
return msvcrt.getch().decode()
else:
import sys, tty, termios
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
def getch():
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
and then use it in the code:
if getch() == chr(ESC_ASCII_VALUE):
print("ESC!")

Simplest cross platform solution is sshkeyboard. Install with pip install sshkeyboard,
then write script such as:
from sshkeyboard import listen_keyboard
def press(key):
print(f"'{key}' pressed")
def release(key):
print(f"'{key}' released")
listen_keyboard(
on_press=press,
on_release=release,
)
And it will print:
'a' pressed
'a' released
When A key is pressed. ESC key ends the listening by default.
It requires less coding than for example curses, tkinter and getch.

My solution for python3, not depending on any pip packages.
# precondition: import tty, sys
def query_yes_no(question, default=True):
"""
Ask the user a yes/no question.
Returns immediately upon reading one-char answer.
Accepts multiple language characters for yes/no.
"""
if not sys.stdin.isatty():
return default
if default:
prompt = "[Y/n]?"
other_answers = "n"
else:
prompt = "[y/N]?"
other_answers = "yjosiá"
print(question,prompt,flush= True,end=" ")
oldttysettings = tty.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return not sys.stdin.read(1).lower() in other_answers
except:
return default
finally:
tty.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), tty.TCSADRAIN , oldttysettings)
sys.stdout.write("\r\n")
tty.tcdrain(sys.stdin.fileno())

The accepted answer didn't perform that well for me (I'd hold a key, nothing would happen, then I'd press another key and it would work).
After learning about the curses module, it really seems like the right way to go. And it's now available for Windows through windows-cursors (available through pip), so you can program in a platform agnostic manner. Here's an example inspired by this nice tutorial on YouTube:
import curses
def getkey(stdscr):
curses.curs_set(0)
while True:
key = stdscr.getch()
if key != -1:
break
return key
if __name__ == "__main__":
print(curses.wrapper(getkey))
Save it with a .py extension, or run curses.wrapper(getkey) in interactive mode.

Answered here: raw_input in python without pressing enter
Use this code-
from tkinter import Tk, Frame
def __set_key(e, root):
"""
e - event with attribute 'char', the released key
"""
global key_pressed
if e.char:
key_pressed = e.char
root.destroy()
def get_key(msg="Press any key ...", time_to_sleep=3):
"""
msg - set to empty string if you don't want to print anything
time_to_sleep - default 3 seconds
"""
global key_pressed
if msg:
print(msg)
key_pressed = None
root = Tk()
root.overrideredirect(True)
frame = Frame(root, width=0, height=0)
frame.bind("<KeyRelease>", lambda f: __set_key(f, root))
frame.pack()
root.focus_set()
frame.focus_set()
frame.focus_force() # doesn't work in a while loop without it
root.after(time_to_sleep * 1000, func=root.destroy)
root.mainloop()
root = None # just in case
return key_pressed
def __main():
c = None
while not c:
c = get_key("Choose your weapon ... ", 2)
print(c)
if __name__ == "__main__":
__main()
Reference: https://github.com/unfor19/mg-tools/blob/master/mgtools/get_key_pressed.py

If you want to register only one single key press even if the user pressed it for more than once or kept pressing the key longer.
To avoid getting multiple pressed inputs use the while loop and pass it.
import keyboard
while(True):
if(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
s+=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
pass
if(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
s-=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
pass
print(s)

The build-in raw_input should help.
for i in range(3):
print ("So much work to do!")
k = raw_input("Press any key to continue...")
print ("Ok, back to work.")

if you just want to hold the screen so you can see the result on the terminal just write
input()
at the end of the code and it will hold the screen

make python react immediately to one character of user input, like "read -n1" in bash [duplicate]

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.

Here's a link to the ActiveState Recipes site that says how you can read a single character in Windows, Linux and OSX:
    getch()-like unbuffered character reading from stdin on both Windows and Unix
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()

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/)

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()

Worth trying is the readchar library, which is in part based on the ActiveState recipe mentioned in other answers (but has come a long way since).
Installation:
python -m pip install readchar
Usage:
import readchar
print('Reading a char:')
print(repr(readchar.readchar()))
print('Reading a key:')
print(repr(readchar.readkey()))
This was tested on Windows and Linux with Python 3.9. It should also work in PyCharm terminal.
Keycodes are not always the same between Windows and Linux, but the library provides platform-specific definitions like readchar.key.F1 to help with that.
Since Linux reports most special keys as escape sequences (starting with \x1b), readkey() gets confused if you hit the actual Escape key (reported by the terminal as a solitary \x1b). This is unfortunately a common Unix problem, with no truly reliable solution.
Note that while readkey raises KeyboardInterrupt on Ctrl+C (see readchar.config), other Linux signal keys (e.g. Ctrl+D and Ctrl+Z) are caught and returned (as '\x04' and '\x1a' respectively), which may or may not be desirable.
For an input prompt-like functionality similar to Python's input(), consider this issue.

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.

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))

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()

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

The answers here were informative, however I also wanted a way to get key presses asynchronously and fire off key presses in separate events, all in a thread-safe, cross-platform way. PyGame was also too bloated for me. So I made the following (in Python 2.7 but I suspect it's easily portable), which I figured I'd share here in case it was useful for anyone else. I stored this in a file named keyPress.py.
class _Getch:
"""Gets a single character from standard input. Does not echo to the
screen. From http://code.activestate.com/recipes/134892/"""
def __init__(self):
try:
self.impl = _GetchWindows()
except ImportError:
try:
self.impl = _GetchMacCarbon()
except(AttributeError, ImportError):
self.impl = _GetchUnix()
def __call__(self): return self.impl()
class _GetchUnix:
def __init__(self):
import tty, sys, termios # import termios now or else you'll get the Unix version on the Mac
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()
class _GetchMacCarbon:
"""
A function which returns the current ASCII key that is down;
if no ASCII key is down, the null string is returned. The
page http://www.mactech.com/macintosh-c/chap02-1.html was
very helpful in figuring out how to do this.
"""
def __init__(self):
import Carbon
Carbon.Evt #see if it has this (in Unix, it doesn't)
def __call__(self):
import Carbon
if Carbon.Evt.EventAvail(0x0008)[0]==0: # 0x0008 is the keyDownMask
return ''
else:
#
# The event contains the following info:
# (what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
#
# The message (msg) contains the ASCII char which is
# extracted with the 0x000000FF charCodeMask; this
# number is converted to an ASCII character with chr() and
# returned
#
(what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
return chr(msg & 0x000000FF)
import threading
# From https://stackoverflow.com/a/2022629/2924421
class Event(list):
def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
for f in self:
f(*args, **kwargs)
def __repr__(self):
return "Event(%s)" % list.__repr__(self)
def getKey():
inkey = _Getch()
import sys
for i in xrange(sys.maxint):
k=inkey()
if k<>'':break
return k
class KeyCallbackFunction():
callbackParam = None
actualFunction = None
def __init__(self, actualFunction, callbackParam):
self.actualFunction = actualFunction
self.callbackParam = callbackParam
def doCallback(self, inputKey):
if not self.actualFunction is None:
if self.callbackParam is None:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,))
else:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,self.callbackParam))
callbackFunctionThread.daemon = True
callbackFunctionThread.start()
class KeyCapture():
gotKeyLock = threading.Lock()
gotKeys = []
gotKeyEvent = threading.Event()
keyBlockingSetKeyLock = threading.Lock()
addingEventsLock = threading.Lock()
keyReceiveEvents = Event()
keysGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysGot = []
keyBlockingKeyLockLossy = threading.Lock()
keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
keyBlockingEventLossy = threading.Event()
keysBlockingGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysBlockingGot = []
keyBlockingGotEvent = threading.Event()
wantToStopLock = threading.Lock()
wantToStop = False
stoppedLock = threading.Lock()
stopped = True
isRunningEvent = False
getKeyThread = None
keyFunction = None
keyArgs = None
# Begin capturing keys. A seperate thread is launched that
# captures key presses, and then these can be received via get,
# getAsync, and adding an event via addEvent. Note that this
# will prevent the system to accept keys as normal (say, if
# you are in a python shell) because it overrides that key
# capturing behavior.
# If you start capture when it's already been started, a
# InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
# will be thrown
# Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
#
# 1: Any calls to get() that are waiting, with lossy on, will return
# that key
# 2: It will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy
# off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
# 3: All events will be fired with that key as their input
# 4: It will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that list
# will be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync().
# get() call with it, aand add it to the getAsync() list.
def startCapture(self, keyFunction=None, args=None):
# Make sure we aren't already capturing keys
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
if not self.stopped:
self.stoppedLock.release()
raise InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
return
self.stopped = False
self.stoppedLock.release()
# If we have captured before, we need to allow the get() calls to actually
# wait for key presses now by clearing the event
if self.keyBlockingEventLossy.is_set():
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
# Have one function that we call every time a key is captured, intended for stopping capture
# as desired
self.keyFunction = keyFunction
self.keyArgs = args
# Begin capturing keys (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadProcessKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
# Process key captures (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadStoreKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
def capturing(self):
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
isCapturing = not self.stopped
self.stoppedLock.release()
return isCapturing
# Stops the thread that is capturing keys on the first opporunity
# has to do so. It usually can't stop immediately because getting a key
# is a blocking process, so this will probably stop capturing after the
# next key is pressed.
#
# However, Sometimes if you call stopCapture it will stop before starting capturing the
# next key, due to multithreading race conditions. So if you want to stop capturing
# reliably, call stopCapture in a function added via addEvent. Then you are
# guaranteed that capturing will stop immediately after the rest of the callback
# functions are called (before starting to capture the next key).
def stopCapture(self):
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
self.wantToStop = True
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# Takes in a function that will be called every time a key is pressed (with that
# key passed in as the first paramater in that function)
def addEvent(self, keyPressEventFunction, args=None):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
callbackHolder = KeyCallbackFunction(keyPressEventFunction, args)
self.keyReceiveEvents.append(callbackHolder.doCallback)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def clearEvents(self):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents = Event()
self.addingEventsLock.release()
# Gets a key captured by this KeyCapture, blocking until a key is pressed.
# There is an optional lossy paramater:
# If True all keys before this call are ignored, and the next pressed key
# will be returned.
# If False this will return the oldest key captured that hasn't
# been returned by get yet. False is the default.
def get(self, lossy=False):
if lossy:
# Wait for the next key to be pressed
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.wait()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
keyReceived = self.keyBlockingKeyLossy
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
return keyReceived
else:
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) != 0:
readKey = self.keysBlockingGot.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 0:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.clear()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
return readKey
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
return None
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def clearGetList(self):
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot = []
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Gets a list of all keys pressed since the last call to getAsync, in order
# from first pressed, second pressed, .., most recent pressed
def getAsync(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
keysPressedList = list(self.keysGot)
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release()
return keysPressedList
def clearAsyncList(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release();
def _processKey(self, readKey):
# Append to list for GetKeyAsync
self.keysGotLock.acquire()
self.keysGot.append(readKey)
self.keysGotLock.release()
# Call lossy blocking key events
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = readKey
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
# Call non-lossy blocking key events
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot.append(readKey)
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 1:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Call events added by AddEvent
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents(readKey)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def _threadProcessKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.gotKeyEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.gotKeys) != 0:
readKey = self.gotKeys.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.gotKeys) == 0:
self.gotKeyEvent.clear()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
self._processKey(readKey)
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def _threadStoreKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Get a key
readKey = getKey()
# Run the potential shut down function
if not self.keyFunction is None:
self.keyFunction(readKey, self.keyArgs)
# Add the key to the list of pressed keys
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
self.gotKeys.append(readKey)
if len(self.gotKeys) == 1:
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# If we have reached here we stopped capturing
# All we need to do to clean up is ensure that
# all the calls to .get() now return None.
# To ensure no calls are stuck never returning,
# we will leave the event set so any tasks waiting
# for it immediately exit. This will be unset upon
# starting key capturing again.
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
# We also need to set this to True so we can start up
# capturing again.
self.stopped = True
self.stopped = True
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
self.stoppedLock.release()
The idea is that you can either simply call keyPress.getKey(), which will read a key from the keyboard, then return it.
If you want something more than that, I made a KeyCapture object. You can create one via something like keys = keyPress.KeyCapture().
Then there are three things you can do:
addEvent(functionName) takes in any function that takes in one parameter. Then every time a key is pressed, this function will be called with that key's string as it's input. These are ran in a separate thread, so you can block all you want in them and it won't mess up the functionality of the KeyCapturer nor delay the other events.
get() returns a key in the same blocking way as before. It is now needed here because the keys are being captured via the KeyCapture object now, so keyPress.getKey() would conflict with that behavior and both of them would miss some keys since only one key can be captured at a time. Also, say the user presses 'a', then 'b', you call get(), the user presses 'c'. That get() call will immediately return 'a', then if you call it again it will return 'b', then 'c'. If you call it again it will block until another key is pressed. This ensures that you don't miss any keys, in a blocking way if desired. So in this way it's a little different than keyPress.getKey() from before
If you want the behavior of getKey() back, get(lossy=True) is like get(), except that it only returns keys pressed after the call to get(). So in the above example, get() would block until the user presses 'c', and then if you call it again it will block until another key is pressed.
getAsync() is a little different. It's designed for something that does a lot of processing, then occasionally comes back and checks which keys were pressed. Thus getAsync() returns a list of all the keys pressed since the last call to getAsync(), in order from oldest key pressed to most recent key pressed. It also doesn't block, meaning that if no keys have been pressed since the last call to getAsync(), an empty [] will be returned.
To actually start capturing keys, you need to call keys.startCapture() with your keys object made above. startCapture is non-blocking, and simply starts one thread that just records the key presses, and another thread to process those key presses. There are two threads to ensure that the thread that records key presses doesn't miss any keys.
If you want to stop capturing keys, you can call keys.stopCapture() and it will stop capturing keys. However, since capturing a key is a blocking operation, the thread capturing keys might capture one more key after calling stopCapture().
To prevent this, you can pass in an optional parameter(s) into startCapture(functionName, args) of a function that just does something like checks if a key equals 'c' and then exits. It's important that this function does very little before, for example, a sleep here will cause us to miss keys.
However, if stopCapture() is called in this function, key captures will be stopped immediately, without trying to capture any more, and that all get() calls will be returned immediately, with None if no keys have been pressed yet.
Also, since get() and getAsync() store all the previous keys pressed (until you retrieve them), you can call clearGetList() and clearAsyncList() to forget the keys previously pressed.
Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
One call to get() that is waiting, with lossy on, will return
that key. The other waiting calls (if any) will continue waiting.
That key will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
All events will be fired with that key as their input
That key will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that lis twill be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync()
If all this is too much, here is an example use case:
import keyPress
import time
import threading
def KeyPressed(k, printLock):
printLock.acquire()
print "Event: " + k
printLock.release()
time.sleep(4)
printLock.acquire()
print "Event after delay: " + k
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlocking(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get()
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Block " + keyReceived
else:
print "Block None"
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlockingLossy(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get(lossy=True)
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Lossy: " + keyReceived
else:
print "Lossy: None"
printLock.release()
def CheckToClose(k, (keys, printLock)):
printLock.acquire()
print "Close: " + k
printLock.release()
if k == "c":
keys.stopCapture()
printLock = threading.Lock()
print "Press a key:"
print "You pressed: " + keyPress.getKey()
print ""
keys = keyPress.KeyCapture()
keys.addEvent(KeyPressed, printLock)
print "Starting capture"
keys.startCapture(CheckToClose, (keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlocking, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThread.start()
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlockingLossy, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.start()
while keys.capturing():
keysPressed = keys.getAsync()
printLock.acquire()
if keysPressed != []:
print "Async: " + str(keysPressed)
printLock.release()
time.sleep(1)
print "done capturing"
It is working well for me from the simple test I made, but I will happily take others feedback as well if there is something I missed.
I posted this here as well.

This might be a use case for a context manager. Leaving aside allowances for Windows OS, here's my suggestion:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# file: 'readchar.py'
"""
Implementation of a way to get a single character of input
without waiting for the user to hit <Enter>.
(OS is Linux, Ubuntu 14.04)
"""
import tty, sys, termios
class ReadChar():
def __enter__(self):
self.fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
self.old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(self.fd)
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return sys.stdin.read(1)
def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
termios.tcsetattr(self.fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, self.old_settings)
def test():
while True:
with ReadChar() as rc:
char = rc
if ord(char) <= 32:
print("You entered character with ordinal {}."\
.format(ord(char)))
else:
print("You entered character '{}'."\
.format(char))
if char in "^C^D":
sys.exit()
if __name__ == "__main__":
test()

If I'm doing something complicated I'll use curses to read keys. But a lot of times I just want a simple Python 3 script that uses the standard library and can read arrow keys, so I do this:
import sys, termios, tty
key_Enter = 13
key_Esc = 27
key_Up = '\033[A'
key_Dn = '\033[B'
key_Rt = '\033[C'
key_Lt = '\033[D'
fdInput = sys.stdin.fileno()
termAttr = termios.tcgetattr(0)
def getch():
tty.setraw(fdInput)
ch = sys.stdin.buffer.raw.read(4).decode(sys.stdin.encoding)
if len(ch) == 1:
if ord(ch) < 32 or ord(ch) > 126:
ch = ord(ch)
elif ord(ch[0]) == 27:
ch = '\033' + ch[1:]
termios.tcsetattr(fdInput, termios.TCSADRAIN, termAttr)
return ch

You could use click. It's well-tested and works on Linux, Mac & Windows.
import click
print('Continue? [yn] ')
c = click.getchar() # Gets a single character
if c == 'y':
print('We will go on')
elif c == 'n':
print('Abort!')
else:
print('Invalid input :(')

This is NON-BLOCKING, reads a key and and stores it in keypress.key.
import Tkinter as tk
class Keypress:
def __init__(self):
self.root = tk.Tk()
self.root.geometry('300x200')
self.root.bind('<KeyPress>', self.onKeyPress)
def onKeyPress(self, event):
self.key = event.char
def __eq__(self, other):
return self.key == other
def __str__(self):
return self.key
in your programm
keypress = Keypress()
while something:
do something
if keypress == 'c':
break
elif keypress == 'i':
print('info')
else:
print("i dont understand %s" % keypress)

The ActiveState's recipe seems to contain a little bug for "posix" systems that prevents Ctrl-C from interrupting (I'm using Mac). If I put the following code in my script:
while(True):
print(getch())
I will never be able to terminate the script with Ctrl-C, and I have to kill my terminal to escape.
I believe the following line is the cause, and it's also too brutal:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
Asides from that, package tty is not really needed, termios is enough to handle it.
Below is the improved code that works for me (Ctrl-C will interrupt), with the extra getche function that echo the char as you type:
if sys.platform == 'win32':
import msvcrt
getch = msvcrt.getch
getche = msvcrt.getche
else:
import sys
import termios
def __gen_ch_getter(echo):
def __fun():
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
oldattr = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
newattr = oldattr[:]
try:
if echo:
# disable ctrl character printing, otherwise, backspace will be printed as "^?"
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHOCTL)
else:
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHO)
newattr[3] &= lflag
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, newattr)
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
if echo and ord(ch) == 127: # backspace
# emulate backspace erasing
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/47962872/404271
sys.stdout.write('\b \b')
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, oldattr)
return ch
return __fun
getch = __gen_ch_getter(False)
getche = __gen_ch_getter(True)
References:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/getch

Try this with pygame:
import pygame
pygame.init() // eliminate error, pygame.error: video system not initialized
keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
if keys[pygame.K_SPACE]:
d = "space key"
print "You pressed the", d, "."

A comment in one of the other answers mentioned cbreak mode, which is important for Unix implementations because you generally don't want ^C (KeyboardError) to be consumed by getchar (as it will when you set the terminal to raw mode, as done by most other answers).
Another important detail is that if you're looking to read one character and not one byte, you should read 4 bytes from the input stream, as that's the maximum number of bytes a single character will consist of in UTF-8 (Python 3+). Reading only a single byte will produce unexpected results for multi-byte characters such as keypad arrows.
Here's my changed implementation for Unix:
import contextlib
import os
import sys
import termios
import tty
_MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH = 4
#contextlib.contextmanager
def _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
"""
A context manager that saves the tty flags of a file descriptor upon
entering and restores them upon exiting.
"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(file_descriptor)
try:
yield
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(file_descriptor, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
def get_character(file=sys.stdin):
"""
Read a single character from the given input stream (defaults to sys.stdin).
"""
file_descriptor = file.fileno()
with _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
tty.setcbreak(file_descriptor)
return os.read(file_descriptor, _MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH)

The curses package in python can be used to enter "raw" mode for character input from the terminal with just a few statements. Curses' main use is to take over the screen for output, which may not be what you want. This code snippet uses print() statements instead, which are usable, but you must be aware of how curses changes line endings attached to output.
#!/usr/bin/python3
# Demo of single char terminal input in raw mode with the curses package.
import sys, curses
def run_one_char(dummy):
'Run until a carriage return is entered'
char = ' '
print('Welcome to curses', flush=True)
while ord(char) != 13:
char = one_char()
def one_char():
'Read one character from the keyboard'
print('\r? ', flush= True, end = '')
## A blocking single char read in raw mode.
char = sys.stdin.read(1)
print('You entered %s\r' % char)
return char
## Must init curses before calling any functions
curses.initscr()
## To make sure the terminal returns to its initial settings,
## and to set raw mode and guarantee cleanup on exit.
curses.wrapper(run_one_char)
print('Curses be gone!')

TL;DR: here is your no-dependencies-crossplatform maximum density copy-pasta
I know I was looking for that ☝️. You came here from google and want something that will just work without pip install this-and-that? I'm fairly sure this solution will continue working for a long time.
Example use
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just normal key like a
'a'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # a but its shift or capslock
'A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just bare enter
'\r'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # literal ESC key
'\x1b'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on linux
'\x1b[A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on windows
'àK'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # some really obscure key-combo. still works.
'\x1b[19;6~'
Crossplatform solution, no external dependencies
Scroll for more detailed answer at the end with sane indentation and commenting. This is maximum density preview for easy copy-pasting. Just call getch_but_it_actually_works()
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win(): return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char): return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
try: msvcrt.ungetwch("a")
except OSError: return msvcrt.getwch()
else: _ = msvcrt.getwch(); return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()); tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings); return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char): return True if char == "\x1b" else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()); os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False)
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1): buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True); termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump: return buffer_dump
else: return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_win, _char_can_be_escape_win, _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios, tty, sys
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_nix, _char_can_be_escape_nix, _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
wchar = read_one_wdchar()
if char_can_escape(wchar): dump = dump_key_buffer(); return wchar + dump
else: return wchar
The long answer, code with comments and sane indentation
Here is the long answer with all the comments. Still no dependencies.
This will in all likelihood work for long time on both linux and windows. No external dependencies, only built-ins.
It will also deal with edge cases like hitting arrow keys or something obscure like <ctrl + shift + f12> which will produce long ANSI escape sequence on linux and something else on windows. It will capture things like <ctrl+x> or <ctrl+z> or tab or F1-12 as single input
I have come back to this post literally dozens of times of the years so now it is time for me to give back the two cents and interest. Below is the fully commented code.
The example is somewhat long but you can skip reading most of it. The relevant bit is at the very end, you can just copy-paste the entire thing.
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False # \x00 is null character
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
"""If piece of multipart keycode in buffer, return it. Else return None"""
try: # msvcrt.kbhit wont work with msvcrt.getwch
msvcrt.ungetwch("a") # check buffer status by ungetching wchr
except OSError: # ungetch fails > something in buffer so >
return msvcrt.getwch() # return the buffer note: win multipart keys
else: # are always 2 parts. if ungetwch does not fail
_ = msvcrt.getwch() # clean up and return empty string
return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # set raw mode to catch raw key w/o enter
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char == "\x1b" else False # "\x1b" is literal esc-key
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
"""If parts of multipart keycode in buffer, return them. Otherwise None"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # raw to read single key w/o enter
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False) # dont block for empty buffer
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1):
buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True) # restore normal settings
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump:
return buffer_dump
else:
return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_win
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_win
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios
import tty
import sys
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_nix
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_nix
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
"""Returns a printable character or a keycode corresponding to special key
like arrow or insert. Compatible with windows and linux, no external libs
except for builtins. Uses different builtins for windows and linux.
This function is more accurately called:
"get_wide_character_or_keycode_if_the_key_was_nonprintable()"
e.g.:
* returns "e" if e was pressed
* returns "E" if shift or capslock was on
* returns "x1b[19;6~'" for ctrl + shift + F8 on unix
You can use string.isprintable() if you need to sometimes print the output
and sometimes use it for menu control and such. Printing raw ansi escape
codes can cause your terminal to do things like move cursor three rows up.
Enter will return "\ r" on all platforms (without the space seen here)
as the enter key will produce carriage return, but windows and linux
interpret it differently in different contexts on higher level
"""
wchar = read_one_wdchar() # get first char from key press or key combo
if char_can_escape(wchar): # if char is escapecode, more may be waiting
dump = dump_key_buffer() # dump buffer to check if more were waiting.
return wchar + dump # return escape+buffer. buff could be just ""
else: # if buffer was empty then we return a single
return wchar # key like "e" or "\x1b" for the ESC button

I believe that this is one the most elegant solution.
import os
if os.name == 'nt':
import msvcrt
def getch():
return msvcrt.getch().decode()
else:
import sys, tty, termios
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
def getch():
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
and then use it in the code:
if getch() == chr(ESC_ASCII_VALUE):
print("ESC!")

Simplest cross platform solution is sshkeyboard. Install with pip install sshkeyboard,
then write script such as:
from sshkeyboard import listen_keyboard
def press(key):
print(f"'{key}' pressed")
def release(key):
print(f"'{key}' released")
listen_keyboard(
on_press=press,
on_release=release,
)
And it will print:
'a' pressed
'a' released
When A key is pressed. ESC key ends the listening by default.
It requires less coding than for example curses, tkinter and getch.

My solution for python3, not depending on any pip packages.
# precondition: import tty, sys
def query_yes_no(question, default=True):
"""
Ask the user a yes/no question.
Returns immediately upon reading one-char answer.
Accepts multiple language characters for yes/no.
"""
if not sys.stdin.isatty():
return default
if default:
prompt = "[Y/n]?"
other_answers = "n"
else:
prompt = "[y/N]?"
other_answers = "yjosiá"
print(question,prompt,flush= True,end=" ")
oldttysettings = tty.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return not sys.stdin.read(1).lower() in other_answers
except:
return default
finally:
tty.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), tty.TCSADRAIN , oldttysettings)
sys.stdout.write("\r\n")
tty.tcdrain(sys.stdin.fileno())

The accepted answer didn't perform that well for me (I'd hold a key, nothing would happen, then I'd press another key and it would work).
After learning about the curses module, it really seems like the right way to go. And it's now available for Windows through windows-cursors (available through pip), so you can program in a platform agnostic manner. Here's an example inspired by this nice tutorial on YouTube:
import curses
def getkey(stdscr):
curses.curs_set(0)
while True:
key = stdscr.getch()
if key != -1:
break
return key
if __name__ == "__main__":
print(curses.wrapper(getkey))
Save it with a .py extension, or run curses.wrapper(getkey) in interactive mode.

Answered here: raw_input in python without pressing enter
Use this code-
from tkinter import Tk, Frame
def __set_key(e, root):
"""
e - event with attribute 'char', the released key
"""
global key_pressed
if e.char:
key_pressed = e.char
root.destroy()
def get_key(msg="Press any key ...", time_to_sleep=3):
"""
msg - set to empty string if you don't want to print anything
time_to_sleep - default 3 seconds
"""
global key_pressed
if msg:
print(msg)
key_pressed = None
root = Tk()
root.overrideredirect(True)
frame = Frame(root, width=0, height=0)
frame.bind("<KeyRelease>", lambda f: __set_key(f, root))
frame.pack()
root.focus_set()
frame.focus_set()
frame.focus_force() # doesn't work in a while loop without it
root.after(time_to_sleep * 1000, func=root.destroy)
root.mainloop()
root = None # just in case
return key_pressed
def __main():
c = None
while not c:
c = get_key("Choose your weapon ... ", 2)
print(c)
if __name__ == "__main__":
__main()
Reference: https://github.com/unfor19/mg-tools/blob/master/mgtools/get_key_pressed.py

If you want to register only one single key press even if the user pressed it for more than once or kept pressing the key longer.
To avoid getting multiple pressed inputs use the while loop and pass it.
import keyboard
while(True):
if(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
s+=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
pass
if(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
s-=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
pass
print(s)

The build-in raw_input should help.
for i in range(3):
print ("So much work to do!")
k = raw_input("Press any key to continue...")
print ("Ok, back to work.")

if you just want to hold the screen so you can see the result on the terminal just write
input()
at the end of the code and it will hold the screen

How to get single character from user without /n or printing in console [duplicate]

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.

Here's a link to the ActiveState Recipes site that says how you can read a single character in Windows, Linux and OSX:
    getch()-like unbuffered character reading from stdin on both Windows and Unix
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()

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/)

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()

Worth trying is the readchar library, which is in part based on the ActiveState recipe mentioned in other answers (but has come a long way since).
Installation:
python -m pip install readchar
Usage:
import readchar
print('Reading a char:')
print(repr(readchar.readchar()))
print('Reading a key:')
print(repr(readchar.readkey()))
This was tested on Windows and Linux with Python 3.9. It should also work in PyCharm terminal.
Keycodes are not always the same between Windows and Linux, but the library provides platform-specific definitions like readchar.key.F1 to help with that.
Since Linux reports most special keys as escape sequences (starting with \x1b), readkey() gets confused if you hit the actual Escape key (reported by the terminal as a solitary \x1b). This is unfortunately a common Unix problem, with no truly reliable solution.
Note that while readkey raises KeyboardInterrupt on Ctrl+C (see readchar.config), other Linux signal keys (e.g. Ctrl+D and Ctrl+Z) are caught and returned (as '\x04' and '\x1a' respectively), which may or may not be desirable.
For an input prompt-like functionality similar to Python's input(), consider this issue.

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.

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))

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()

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

The answers here were informative, however I also wanted a way to get key presses asynchronously and fire off key presses in separate events, all in a thread-safe, cross-platform way. PyGame was also too bloated for me. So I made the following (in Python 2.7 but I suspect it's easily portable), which I figured I'd share here in case it was useful for anyone else. I stored this in a file named keyPress.py.
class _Getch:
"""Gets a single character from standard input. Does not echo to the
screen. From http://code.activestate.com/recipes/134892/"""
def __init__(self):
try:
self.impl = _GetchWindows()
except ImportError:
try:
self.impl = _GetchMacCarbon()
except(AttributeError, ImportError):
self.impl = _GetchUnix()
def __call__(self): return self.impl()
class _GetchUnix:
def __init__(self):
import tty, sys, termios # import termios now or else you'll get the Unix version on the Mac
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()
class _GetchMacCarbon:
"""
A function which returns the current ASCII key that is down;
if no ASCII key is down, the null string is returned. The
page http://www.mactech.com/macintosh-c/chap02-1.html was
very helpful in figuring out how to do this.
"""
def __init__(self):
import Carbon
Carbon.Evt #see if it has this (in Unix, it doesn't)
def __call__(self):
import Carbon
if Carbon.Evt.EventAvail(0x0008)[0]==0: # 0x0008 is the keyDownMask
return ''
else:
#
# The event contains the following info:
# (what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
#
# The message (msg) contains the ASCII char which is
# extracted with the 0x000000FF charCodeMask; this
# number is converted to an ASCII character with chr() and
# returned
#
(what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
return chr(msg & 0x000000FF)
import threading
# From https://stackoverflow.com/a/2022629/2924421
class Event(list):
def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
for f in self:
f(*args, **kwargs)
def __repr__(self):
return "Event(%s)" % list.__repr__(self)
def getKey():
inkey = _Getch()
import sys
for i in xrange(sys.maxint):
k=inkey()
if k<>'':break
return k
class KeyCallbackFunction():
callbackParam = None
actualFunction = None
def __init__(self, actualFunction, callbackParam):
self.actualFunction = actualFunction
self.callbackParam = callbackParam
def doCallback(self, inputKey):
if not self.actualFunction is None:
if self.callbackParam is None:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,))
else:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,self.callbackParam))
callbackFunctionThread.daemon = True
callbackFunctionThread.start()
class KeyCapture():
gotKeyLock = threading.Lock()
gotKeys = []
gotKeyEvent = threading.Event()
keyBlockingSetKeyLock = threading.Lock()
addingEventsLock = threading.Lock()
keyReceiveEvents = Event()
keysGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysGot = []
keyBlockingKeyLockLossy = threading.Lock()
keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
keyBlockingEventLossy = threading.Event()
keysBlockingGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysBlockingGot = []
keyBlockingGotEvent = threading.Event()
wantToStopLock = threading.Lock()
wantToStop = False
stoppedLock = threading.Lock()
stopped = True
isRunningEvent = False
getKeyThread = None
keyFunction = None
keyArgs = None
# Begin capturing keys. A seperate thread is launched that
# captures key presses, and then these can be received via get,
# getAsync, and adding an event via addEvent. Note that this
# will prevent the system to accept keys as normal (say, if
# you are in a python shell) because it overrides that key
# capturing behavior.
# If you start capture when it's already been started, a
# InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
# will be thrown
# Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
#
# 1: Any calls to get() that are waiting, with lossy on, will return
# that key
# 2: It will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy
# off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
# 3: All events will be fired with that key as their input
# 4: It will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that list
# will be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync().
# get() call with it, aand add it to the getAsync() list.
def startCapture(self, keyFunction=None, args=None):
# Make sure we aren't already capturing keys
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
if not self.stopped:
self.stoppedLock.release()
raise InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
return
self.stopped = False
self.stoppedLock.release()
# If we have captured before, we need to allow the get() calls to actually
# wait for key presses now by clearing the event
if self.keyBlockingEventLossy.is_set():
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
# Have one function that we call every time a key is captured, intended for stopping capture
# as desired
self.keyFunction = keyFunction
self.keyArgs = args
# Begin capturing keys (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadProcessKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
# Process key captures (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadStoreKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
def capturing(self):
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
isCapturing = not self.stopped
self.stoppedLock.release()
return isCapturing
# Stops the thread that is capturing keys on the first opporunity
# has to do so. It usually can't stop immediately because getting a key
# is a blocking process, so this will probably stop capturing after the
# next key is pressed.
#
# However, Sometimes if you call stopCapture it will stop before starting capturing the
# next key, due to multithreading race conditions. So if you want to stop capturing
# reliably, call stopCapture in a function added via addEvent. Then you are
# guaranteed that capturing will stop immediately after the rest of the callback
# functions are called (before starting to capture the next key).
def stopCapture(self):
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
self.wantToStop = True
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# Takes in a function that will be called every time a key is pressed (with that
# key passed in as the first paramater in that function)
def addEvent(self, keyPressEventFunction, args=None):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
callbackHolder = KeyCallbackFunction(keyPressEventFunction, args)
self.keyReceiveEvents.append(callbackHolder.doCallback)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def clearEvents(self):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents = Event()
self.addingEventsLock.release()
# Gets a key captured by this KeyCapture, blocking until a key is pressed.
# There is an optional lossy paramater:
# If True all keys before this call are ignored, and the next pressed key
# will be returned.
# If False this will return the oldest key captured that hasn't
# been returned by get yet. False is the default.
def get(self, lossy=False):
if lossy:
# Wait for the next key to be pressed
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.wait()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
keyReceived = self.keyBlockingKeyLossy
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
return keyReceived
else:
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) != 0:
readKey = self.keysBlockingGot.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 0:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.clear()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
return readKey
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
return None
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def clearGetList(self):
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot = []
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Gets a list of all keys pressed since the last call to getAsync, in order
# from first pressed, second pressed, .., most recent pressed
def getAsync(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
keysPressedList = list(self.keysGot)
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release()
return keysPressedList
def clearAsyncList(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release();
def _processKey(self, readKey):
# Append to list for GetKeyAsync
self.keysGotLock.acquire()
self.keysGot.append(readKey)
self.keysGotLock.release()
# Call lossy blocking key events
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = readKey
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
# Call non-lossy blocking key events
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot.append(readKey)
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 1:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Call events added by AddEvent
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents(readKey)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def _threadProcessKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.gotKeyEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.gotKeys) != 0:
readKey = self.gotKeys.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.gotKeys) == 0:
self.gotKeyEvent.clear()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
self._processKey(readKey)
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def _threadStoreKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Get a key
readKey = getKey()
# Run the potential shut down function
if not self.keyFunction is None:
self.keyFunction(readKey, self.keyArgs)
# Add the key to the list of pressed keys
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
self.gotKeys.append(readKey)
if len(self.gotKeys) == 1:
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# If we have reached here we stopped capturing
# All we need to do to clean up is ensure that
# all the calls to .get() now return None.
# To ensure no calls are stuck never returning,
# we will leave the event set so any tasks waiting
# for it immediately exit. This will be unset upon
# starting key capturing again.
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
# We also need to set this to True so we can start up
# capturing again.
self.stopped = True
self.stopped = True
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
self.stoppedLock.release()
The idea is that you can either simply call keyPress.getKey(), which will read a key from the keyboard, then return it.
If you want something more than that, I made a KeyCapture object. You can create one via something like keys = keyPress.KeyCapture().
Then there are three things you can do:
addEvent(functionName) takes in any function that takes in one parameter. Then every time a key is pressed, this function will be called with that key's string as it's input. These are ran in a separate thread, so you can block all you want in them and it won't mess up the functionality of the KeyCapturer nor delay the other events.
get() returns a key in the same blocking way as before. It is now needed here because the keys are being captured via the KeyCapture object now, so keyPress.getKey() would conflict with that behavior and both of them would miss some keys since only one key can be captured at a time. Also, say the user presses 'a', then 'b', you call get(), the user presses 'c'. That get() call will immediately return 'a', then if you call it again it will return 'b', then 'c'. If you call it again it will block until another key is pressed. This ensures that you don't miss any keys, in a blocking way if desired. So in this way it's a little different than keyPress.getKey() from before
If you want the behavior of getKey() back, get(lossy=True) is like get(), except that it only returns keys pressed after the call to get(). So in the above example, get() would block until the user presses 'c', and then if you call it again it will block until another key is pressed.
getAsync() is a little different. It's designed for something that does a lot of processing, then occasionally comes back and checks which keys were pressed. Thus getAsync() returns a list of all the keys pressed since the last call to getAsync(), in order from oldest key pressed to most recent key pressed. It also doesn't block, meaning that if no keys have been pressed since the last call to getAsync(), an empty [] will be returned.
To actually start capturing keys, you need to call keys.startCapture() with your keys object made above. startCapture is non-blocking, and simply starts one thread that just records the key presses, and another thread to process those key presses. There are two threads to ensure that the thread that records key presses doesn't miss any keys.
If you want to stop capturing keys, you can call keys.stopCapture() and it will stop capturing keys. However, since capturing a key is a blocking operation, the thread capturing keys might capture one more key after calling stopCapture().
To prevent this, you can pass in an optional parameter(s) into startCapture(functionName, args) of a function that just does something like checks if a key equals 'c' and then exits. It's important that this function does very little before, for example, a sleep here will cause us to miss keys.
However, if stopCapture() is called in this function, key captures will be stopped immediately, without trying to capture any more, and that all get() calls will be returned immediately, with None if no keys have been pressed yet.
Also, since get() and getAsync() store all the previous keys pressed (until you retrieve them), you can call clearGetList() and clearAsyncList() to forget the keys previously pressed.
Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
One call to get() that is waiting, with lossy on, will return
that key. The other waiting calls (if any) will continue waiting.
That key will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
All events will be fired with that key as their input
That key will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that lis twill be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync()
If all this is too much, here is an example use case:
import keyPress
import time
import threading
def KeyPressed(k, printLock):
printLock.acquire()
print "Event: " + k
printLock.release()
time.sleep(4)
printLock.acquire()
print "Event after delay: " + k
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlocking(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get()
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Block " + keyReceived
else:
print "Block None"
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlockingLossy(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get(lossy=True)
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Lossy: " + keyReceived
else:
print "Lossy: None"
printLock.release()
def CheckToClose(k, (keys, printLock)):
printLock.acquire()
print "Close: " + k
printLock.release()
if k == "c":
keys.stopCapture()
printLock = threading.Lock()
print "Press a key:"
print "You pressed: " + keyPress.getKey()
print ""
keys = keyPress.KeyCapture()
keys.addEvent(KeyPressed, printLock)
print "Starting capture"
keys.startCapture(CheckToClose, (keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlocking, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThread.start()
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlockingLossy, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.start()
while keys.capturing():
keysPressed = keys.getAsync()
printLock.acquire()
if keysPressed != []:
print "Async: " + str(keysPressed)
printLock.release()
time.sleep(1)
print "done capturing"
It is working well for me from the simple test I made, but I will happily take others feedback as well if there is something I missed.
I posted this here as well.

This might be a use case for a context manager. Leaving aside allowances for Windows OS, here's my suggestion:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# file: 'readchar.py'
"""
Implementation of a way to get a single character of input
without waiting for the user to hit <Enter>.
(OS is Linux, Ubuntu 14.04)
"""
import tty, sys, termios
class ReadChar():
def __enter__(self):
self.fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
self.old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(self.fd)
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return sys.stdin.read(1)
def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
termios.tcsetattr(self.fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, self.old_settings)
def test():
while True:
with ReadChar() as rc:
char = rc
if ord(char) <= 32:
print("You entered character with ordinal {}."\
.format(ord(char)))
else:
print("You entered character '{}'."\
.format(char))
if char in "^C^D":
sys.exit()
if __name__ == "__main__":
test()

If I'm doing something complicated I'll use curses to read keys. But a lot of times I just want a simple Python 3 script that uses the standard library and can read arrow keys, so I do this:
import sys, termios, tty
key_Enter = 13
key_Esc = 27
key_Up = '\033[A'
key_Dn = '\033[B'
key_Rt = '\033[C'
key_Lt = '\033[D'
fdInput = sys.stdin.fileno()
termAttr = termios.tcgetattr(0)
def getch():
tty.setraw(fdInput)
ch = sys.stdin.buffer.raw.read(4).decode(sys.stdin.encoding)
if len(ch) == 1:
if ord(ch) < 32 or ord(ch) > 126:
ch = ord(ch)
elif ord(ch[0]) == 27:
ch = '\033' + ch[1:]
termios.tcsetattr(fdInput, termios.TCSADRAIN, termAttr)
return ch

You could use click. It's well-tested and works on Linux, Mac & Windows.
import click
print('Continue? [yn] ')
c = click.getchar() # Gets a single character
if c == 'y':
print('We will go on')
elif c == 'n':
print('Abort!')
else:
print('Invalid input :(')

This is NON-BLOCKING, reads a key and and stores it in keypress.key.
import Tkinter as tk
class Keypress:
def __init__(self):
self.root = tk.Tk()
self.root.geometry('300x200')
self.root.bind('<KeyPress>', self.onKeyPress)
def onKeyPress(self, event):
self.key = event.char
def __eq__(self, other):
return self.key == other
def __str__(self):
return self.key
in your programm
keypress = Keypress()
while something:
do something
if keypress == 'c':
break
elif keypress == 'i':
print('info')
else:
print("i dont understand %s" % keypress)

The ActiveState's recipe seems to contain a little bug for "posix" systems that prevents Ctrl-C from interrupting (I'm using Mac). If I put the following code in my script:
while(True):
print(getch())
I will never be able to terminate the script with Ctrl-C, and I have to kill my terminal to escape.
I believe the following line is the cause, and it's also too brutal:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
Asides from that, package tty is not really needed, termios is enough to handle it.
Below is the improved code that works for me (Ctrl-C will interrupt), with the extra getche function that echo the char as you type:
if sys.platform == 'win32':
import msvcrt
getch = msvcrt.getch
getche = msvcrt.getche
else:
import sys
import termios
def __gen_ch_getter(echo):
def __fun():
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
oldattr = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
newattr = oldattr[:]
try:
if echo:
# disable ctrl character printing, otherwise, backspace will be printed as "^?"
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHOCTL)
else:
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHO)
newattr[3] &= lflag
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, newattr)
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
if echo and ord(ch) == 127: # backspace
# emulate backspace erasing
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/47962872/404271
sys.stdout.write('\b \b')
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, oldattr)
return ch
return __fun
getch = __gen_ch_getter(False)
getche = __gen_ch_getter(True)
References:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/getch

Try this with pygame:
import pygame
pygame.init() // eliminate error, pygame.error: video system not initialized
keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
if keys[pygame.K_SPACE]:
d = "space key"
print "You pressed the", d, "."

A comment in one of the other answers mentioned cbreak mode, which is important for Unix implementations because you generally don't want ^C (KeyboardError) to be consumed by getchar (as it will when you set the terminal to raw mode, as done by most other answers).
Another important detail is that if you're looking to read one character and not one byte, you should read 4 bytes from the input stream, as that's the maximum number of bytes a single character will consist of in UTF-8 (Python 3+). Reading only a single byte will produce unexpected results for multi-byte characters such as keypad arrows.
Here's my changed implementation for Unix:
import contextlib
import os
import sys
import termios
import tty
_MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH = 4
#contextlib.contextmanager
def _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
"""
A context manager that saves the tty flags of a file descriptor upon
entering and restores them upon exiting.
"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(file_descriptor)
try:
yield
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(file_descriptor, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
def get_character(file=sys.stdin):
"""
Read a single character from the given input stream (defaults to sys.stdin).
"""
file_descriptor = file.fileno()
with _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
tty.setcbreak(file_descriptor)
return os.read(file_descriptor, _MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH)

The curses package in python can be used to enter "raw" mode for character input from the terminal with just a few statements. Curses' main use is to take over the screen for output, which may not be what you want. This code snippet uses print() statements instead, which are usable, but you must be aware of how curses changes line endings attached to output.
#!/usr/bin/python3
# Demo of single char terminal input in raw mode with the curses package.
import sys, curses
def run_one_char(dummy):
'Run until a carriage return is entered'
char = ' '
print('Welcome to curses', flush=True)
while ord(char) != 13:
char = one_char()
def one_char():
'Read one character from the keyboard'
print('\r? ', flush= True, end = '')
## A blocking single char read in raw mode.
char = sys.stdin.read(1)
print('You entered %s\r' % char)
return char
## Must init curses before calling any functions
curses.initscr()
## To make sure the terminal returns to its initial settings,
## and to set raw mode and guarantee cleanup on exit.
curses.wrapper(run_one_char)
print('Curses be gone!')

TL;DR: here is your no-dependencies-crossplatform maximum density copy-pasta
I know I was looking for that ☝️. You came here from google and want something that will just work without pip install this-and-that? I'm fairly sure this solution will continue working for a long time.
Example use
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just normal key like a
'a'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # a but its shift or capslock
'A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just bare enter
'\r'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # literal ESC key
'\x1b'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on linux
'\x1b[A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on windows
'àK'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # some really obscure key-combo. still works.
'\x1b[19;6~'
Crossplatform solution, no external dependencies
Scroll for more detailed answer at the end with sane indentation and commenting. This is maximum density preview for easy copy-pasting. Just call getch_but_it_actually_works()
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win(): return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char): return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
try: msvcrt.ungetwch("a")
except OSError: return msvcrt.getwch()
else: _ = msvcrt.getwch(); return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()); tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings); return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char): return True if char == "\x1b" else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()); os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False)
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1): buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True); termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump: return buffer_dump
else: return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_win, _char_can_be_escape_win, _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios, tty, sys
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_nix, _char_can_be_escape_nix, _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
wchar = read_one_wdchar()
if char_can_escape(wchar): dump = dump_key_buffer(); return wchar + dump
else: return wchar
The long answer, code with comments and sane indentation
Here is the long answer with all the comments. Still no dependencies.
This will in all likelihood work for long time on both linux and windows. No external dependencies, only built-ins.
It will also deal with edge cases like hitting arrow keys or something obscure like <ctrl + shift + f12> which will produce long ANSI escape sequence on linux and something else on windows. It will capture things like <ctrl+x> or <ctrl+z> or tab or F1-12 as single input
I have come back to this post literally dozens of times of the years so now it is time for me to give back the two cents and interest. Below is the fully commented code.
The example is somewhat long but you can skip reading most of it. The relevant bit is at the very end, you can just copy-paste the entire thing.
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False # \x00 is null character
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
"""If piece of multipart keycode in buffer, return it. Else return None"""
try: # msvcrt.kbhit wont work with msvcrt.getwch
msvcrt.ungetwch("a") # check buffer status by ungetching wchr
except OSError: # ungetch fails > something in buffer so >
return msvcrt.getwch() # return the buffer note: win multipart keys
else: # are always 2 parts. if ungetwch does not fail
_ = msvcrt.getwch() # clean up and return empty string
return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # set raw mode to catch raw key w/o enter
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char == "\x1b" else False # "\x1b" is literal esc-key
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
"""If parts of multipart keycode in buffer, return them. Otherwise None"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # raw to read single key w/o enter
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False) # dont block for empty buffer
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1):
buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True) # restore normal settings
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump:
return buffer_dump
else:
return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_win
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_win
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios
import tty
import sys
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_nix
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_nix
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
"""Returns a printable character or a keycode corresponding to special key
like arrow or insert. Compatible with windows and linux, no external libs
except for builtins. Uses different builtins for windows and linux.
This function is more accurately called:
"get_wide_character_or_keycode_if_the_key_was_nonprintable()"
e.g.:
* returns "e" if e was pressed
* returns "E" if shift or capslock was on
* returns "x1b[19;6~'" for ctrl + shift + F8 on unix
You can use string.isprintable() if you need to sometimes print the output
and sometimes use it for menu control and such. Printing raw ansi escape
codes can cause your terminal to do things like move cursor three rows up.
Enter will return "\ r" on all platforms (without the space seen here)
as the enter key will produce carriage return, but windows and linux
interpret it differently in different contexts on higher level
"""
wchar = read_one_wdchar() # get first char from key press or key combo
if char_can_escape(wchar): # if char is escapecode, more may be waiting
dump = dump_key_buffer() # dump buffer to check if more were waiting.
return wchar + dump # return escape+buffer. buff could be just ""
else: # if buffer was empty then we return a single
return wchar # key like "e" or "\x1b" for the ESC button

I believe that this is one the most elegant solution.
import os
if os.name == 'nt':
import msvcrt
def getch():
return msvcrt.getch().decode()
else:
import sys, tty, termios
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
def getch():
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
and then use it in the code:
if getch() == chr(ESC_ASCII_VALUE):
print("ESC!")

Simplest cross platform solution is sshkeyboard. Install with pip install sshkeyboard,
then write script such as:
from sshkeyboard import listen_keyboard
def press(key):
print(f"'{key}' pressed")
def release(key):
print(f"'{key}' released")
listen_keyboard(
on_press=press,
on_release=release,
)
And it will print:
'a' pressed
'a' released
When A key is pressed. ESC key ends the listening by default.
It requires less coding than for example curses, tkinter and getch.

My solution for python3, not depending on any pip packages.
# precondition: import tty, sys
def query_yes_no(question, default=True):
"""
Ask the user a yes/no question.
Returns immediately upon reading one-char answer.
Accepts multiple language characters for yes/no.
"""
if not sys.stdin.isatty():
return default
if default:
prompt = "[Y/n]?"
other_answers = "n"
else:
prompt = "[y/N]?"
other_answers = "yjosiá"
print(question,prompt,flush= True,end=" ")
oldttysettings = tty.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return not sys.stdin.read(1).lower() in other_answers
except:
return default
finally:
tty.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), tty.TCSADRAIN , oldttysettings)
sys.stdout.write("\r\n")
tty.tcdrain(sys.stdin.fileno())

The accepted answer didn't perform that well for me (I'd hold a key, nothing would happen, then I'd press another key and it would work).
After learning about the curses module, it really seems like the right way to go. And it's now available for Windows through windows-cursors (available through pip), so you can program in a platform agnostic manner. Here's an example inspired by this nice tutorial on YouTube:
import curses
def getkey(stdscr):
curses.curs_set(0)
while True:
key = stdscr.getch()
if key != -1:
break
return key
if __name__ == "__main__":
print(curses.wrapper(getkey))
Save it with a .py extension, or run curses.wrapper(getkey) in interactive mode.

Answered here: raw_input in python without pressing enter
Use this code-
from tkinter import Tk, Frame
def __set_key(e, root):
"""
e - event with attribute 'char', the released key
"""
global key_pressed
if e.char:
key_pressed = e.char
root.destroy()
def get_key(msg="Press any key ...", time_to_sleep=3):
"""
msg - set to empty string if you don't want to print anything
time_to_sleep - default 3 seconds
"""
global key_pressed
if msg:
print(msg)
key_pressed = None
root = Tk()
root.overrideredirect(True)
frame = Frame(root, width=0, height=0)
frame.bind("<KeyRelease>", lambda f: __set_key(f, root))
frame.pack()
root.focus_set()
frame.focus_set()
frame.focus_force() # doesn't work in a while loop without it
root.after(time_to_sleep * 1000, func=root.destroy)
root.mainloop()
root = None # just in case
return key_pressed
def __main():
c = None
while not c:
c = get_key("Choose your weapon ... ", 2)
print(c)
if __name__ == "__main__":
__main()
Reference: https://github.com/unfor19/mg-tools/blob/master/mgtools/get_key_pressed.py

If you want to register only one single key press even if the user pressed it for more than once or kept pressing the key longer.
To avoid getting multiple pressed inputs use the while loop and pass it.
import keyboard
while(True):
if(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
s+=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
pass
if(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
s-=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
pass
print(s)

The build-in raw_input should help.
for i in range(3):
print ("So much work to do!")
k = raw_input("Press any key to continue...")
print ("Ok, back to work.")

if you just want to hold the screen so you can see the result on the terminal just write
input()
at the end of the code and it will hold the screen

How to read a single character from the user?

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.

Here's a link to the ActiveState Recipes site that says how you can read a single character in Windows, Linux and OSX:
    getch()-like unbuffered character reading from stdin on both Windows and Unix
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()

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/)

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()

Worth trying is the readchar library, which is in part based on the ActiveState recipe mentioned in other answers (but has come a long way since).
Installation:
python -m pip install readchar
Usage:
import readchar
print('Reading a char:')
print(repr(readchar.readchar()))
print('Reading a key:')
print(repr(readchar.readkey()))
This was tested on Windows and Linux with Python 3.9. It should also work in PyCharm terminal.
Keycodes are not always the same between Windows and Linux, but the library provides platform-specific definitions like readchar.key.F1 to help with that.
Since Linux reports most special keys as escape sequences (starting with \x1b), readkey() gets confused if you hit the actual Escape key (reported by the terminal as a solitary \x1b). This is unfortunately a common Unix problem, with no truly reliable solution.
Note that while readkey raises KeyboardInterrupt on Ctrl+C (see readchar.config), other Linux signal keys (e.g. Ctrl+D and Ctrl+Z) are caught and returned (as '\x04' and '\x1a' respectively), which may or may not be desirable.
For an input prompt-like functionality similar to Python's input(), consider this issue.

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.

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))

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()

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

The answers here were informative, however I also wanted a way to get key presses asynchronously and fire off key presses in separate events, all in a thread-safe, cross-platform way. PyGame was also too bloated for me. So I made the following (in Python 2.7 but I suspect it's easily portable), which I figured I'd share here in case it was useful for anyone else. I stored this in a file named keyPress.py.
class _Getch:
"""Gets a single character from standard input. Does not echo to the
screen. From http://code.activestate.com/recipes/134892/"""
def __init__(self):
try:
self.impl = _GetchWindows()
except ImportError:
try:
self.impl = _GetchMacCarbon()
except(AttributeError, ImportError):
self.impl = _GetchUnix()
def __call__(self): return self.impl()
class _GetchUnix:
def __init__(self):
import tty, sys, termios # import termios now or else you'll get the Unix version on the Mac
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()
class _GetchMacCarbon:
"""
A function which returns the current ASCII key that is down;
if no ASCII key is down, the null string is returned. The
page http://www.mactech.com/macintosh-c/chap02-1.html was
very helpful in figuring out how to do this.
"""
def __init__(self):
import Carbon
Carbon.Evt #see if it has this (in Unix, it doesn't)
def __call__(self):
import Carbon
if Carbon.Evt.EventAvail(0x0008)[0]==0: # 0x0008 is the keyDownMask
return ''
else:
#
# The event contains the following info:
# (what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
#
# The message (msg) contains the ASCII char which is
# extracted with the 0x000000FF charCodeMask; this
# number is converted to an ASCII character with chr() and
# returned
#
(what,msg,when,where,mod)=Carbon.Evt.GetNextEvent(0x0008)[1]
return chr(msg & 0x000000FF)
import threading
# From https://stackoverflow.com/a/2022629/2924421
class Event(list):
def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
for f in self:
f(*args, **kwargs)
def __repr__(self):
return "Event(%s)" % list.__repr__(self)
def getKey():
inkey = _Getch()
import sys
for i in xrange(sys.maxint):
k=inkey()
if k<>'':break
return k
class KeyCallbackFunction():
callbackParam = None
actualFunction = None
def __init__(self, actualFunction, callbackParam):
self.actualFunction = actualFunction
self.callbackParam = callbackParam
def doCallback(self, inputKey):
if not self.actualFunction is None:
if self.callbackParam is None:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,))
else:
callbackFunctionThread = threading.Thread(target=self.actualFunction, args=(inputKey,self.callbackParam))
callbackFunctionThread.daemon = True
callbackFunctionThread.start()
class KeyCapture():
gotKeyLock = threading.Lock()
gotKeys = []
gotKeyEvent = threading.Event()
keyBlockingSetKeyLock = threading.Lock()
addingEventsLock = threading.Lock()
keyReceiveEvents = Event()
keysGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysGot = []
keyBlockingKeyLockLossy = threading.Lock()
keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
keyBlockingEventLossy = threading.Event()
keysBlockingGotLock = threading.Lock()
keysBlockingGot = []
keyBlockingGotEvent = threading.Event()
wantToStopLock = threading.Lock()
wantToStop = False
stoppedLock = threading.Lock()
stopped = True
isRunningEvent = False
getKeyThread = None
keyFunction = None
keyArgs = None
# Begin capturing keys. A seperate thread is launched that
# captures key presses, and then these can be received via get,
# getAsync, and adding an event via addEvent. Note that this
# will prevent the system to accept keys as normal (say, if
# you are in a python shell) because it overrides that key
# capturing behavior.
# If you start capture when it's already been started, a
# InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
# will be thrown
# Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
#
# 1: Any calls to get() that are waiting, with lossy on, will return
# that key
# 2: It will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy
# off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
# 3: All events will be fired with that key as their input
# 4: It will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that list
# will be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync().
# get() call with it, aand add it to the getAsync() list.
def startCapture(self, keyFunction=None, args=None):
# Make sure we aren't already capturing keys
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
if not self.stopped:
self.stoppedLock.release()
raise InterruptedError("Keys are still being captured")
return
self.stopped = False
self.stoppedLock.release()
# If we have captured before, we need to allow the get() calls to actually
# wait for key presses now by clearing the event
if self.keyBlockingEventLossy.is_set():
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
# Have one function that we call every time a key is captured, intended for stopping capture
# as desired
self.keyFunction = keyFunction
self.keyArgs = args
# Begin capturing keys (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadProcessKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
# Process key captures (in a seperate thread)
self.getKeyThread = threading.Thread(target=self._threadStoreKeyPresses)
self.getKeyThread.daemon = True
self.getKeyThread.start()
def capturing(self):
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
isCapturing = not self.stopped
self.stoppedLock.release()
return isCapturing
# Stops the thread that is capturing keys on the first opporunity
# has to do so. It usually can't stop immediately because getting a key
# is a blocking process, so this will probably stop capturing after the
# next key is pressed.
#
# However, Sometimes if you call stopCapture it will stop before starting capturing the
# next key, due to multithreading race conditions. So if you want to stop capturing
# reliably, call stopCapture in a function added via addEvent. Then you are
# guaranteed that capturing will stop immediately after the rest of the callback
# functions are called (before starting to capture the next key).
def stopCapture(self):
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
self.wantToStop = True
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# Takes in a function that will be called every time a key is pressed (with that
# key passed in as the first paramater in that function)
def addEvent(self, keyPressEventFunction, args=None):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
callbackHolder = KeyCallbackFunction(keyPressEventFunction, args)
self.keyReceiveEvents.append(callbackHolder.doCallback)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def clearEvents(self):
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents = Event()
self.addingEventsLock.release()
# Gets a key captured by this KeyCapture, blocking until a key is pressed.
# There is an optional lossy paramater:
# If True all keys before this call are ignored, and the next pressed key
# will be returned.
# If False this will return the oldest key captured that hasn't
# been returned by get yet. False is the default.
def get(self, lossy=False):
if lossy:
# Wait for the next key to be pressed
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.wait()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
keyReceived = self.keyBlockingKeyLossy
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
return keyReceived
else:
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) != 0:
readKey = self.keysBlockingGot.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 0:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.clear()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
return readKey
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
return None
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def clearGetList(self):
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot = []
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Gets a list of all keys pressed since the last call to getAsync, in order
# from first pressed, second pressed, .., most recent pressed
def getAsync(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
keysPressedList = list(self.keysGot)
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release()
return keysPressedList
def clearAsyncList(self):
self.keysGotLock.acquire();
self.keysGot = []
self.keysGotLock.release();
def _processKey(self, readKey):
# Append to list for GetKeyAsync
self.keysGotLock.acquire()
self.keysGot.append(readKey)
self.keysGotLock.release()
# Call lossy blocking key events
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = readKey
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.clear()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
# Call non-lossy blocking key events
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keysBlockingGot.append(readKey)
if len(self.keysBlockingGot) == 1:
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
# Call events added by AddEvent
self.addingEventsLock.acquire()
self.keyReceiveEvents(readKey)
self.addingEventsLock.release()
def _threadProcessKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Wait until a key is pressed
self.gotKeyEvent.wait()
# Get the key pressed
readKey = None
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
# Get a key if it exists
if len(self.gotKeys) != 0:
readKey = self.gotKeys.pop(0)
# If we got the last one, tell us to wait
if len(self.gotKeys) == 0:
self.gotKeyEvent.clear()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Process the key (if it actually exists)
if not readKey is None:
self._processKey(readKey)
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
def _threadStoreKeyPresses(self):
while True:
# Get a key
readKey = getKey()
# Run the potential shut down function
if not self.keyFunction is None:
self.keyFunction(readKey, self.keyArgs)
# Add the key to the list of pressed keys
self.gotKeyLock.acquire()
self.gotKeys.append(readKey)
if len(self.gotKeys) == 1:
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
self.gotKeyLock.release()
# Exit if we are stopping
self.wantToStopLock.acquire()
if self.wantToStop:
self.wantToStopLock.release()
self.gotKeyEvent.set()
break
self.wantToStopLock.release()
# If we have reached here we stopped capturing
# All we need to do to clean up is ensure that
# all the calls to .get() now return None.
# To ensure no calls are stuck never returning,
# we will leave the event set so any tasks waiting
# for it immediately exit. This will be unset upon
# starting key capturing again.
self.stoppedLock.acquire()
# We also need to set this to True so we can start up
# capturing again.
self.stopped = True
self.stopped = True
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.acquire()
self.keyBlockingKeyLossy = None
self.keyBlockingEventLossy.set()
self.keyBlockingKeyLockLossy.release()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.acquire()
self.keyBlockingGotEvent.set()
self.keysBlockingGotLock.release()
self.stoppedLock.release()
The idea is that you can either simply call keyPress.getKey(), which will read a key from the keyboard, then return it.
If you want something more than that, I made a KeyCapture object. You can create one via something like keys = keyPress.KeyCapture().
Then there are three things you can do:
addEvent(functionName) takes in any function that takes in one parameter. Then every time a key is pressed, this function will be called with that key's string as it's input. These are ran in a separate thread, so you can block all you want in them and it won't mess up the functionality of the KeyCapturer nor delay the other events.
get() returns a key in the same blocking way as before. It is now needed here because the keys are being captured via the KeyCapture object now, so keyPress.getKey() would conflict with that behavior and both of them would miss some keys since only one key can be captured at a time. Also, say the user presses 'a', then 'b', you call get(), the user presses 'c'. That get() call will immediately return 'a', then if you call it again it will return 'b', then 'c'. If you call it again it will block until another key is pressed. This ensures that you don't miss any keys, in a blocking way if desired. So in this way it's a little different than keyPress.getKey() from before
If you want the behavior of getKey() back, get(lossy=True) is like get(), except that it only returns keys pressed after the call to get(). So in the above example, get() would block until the user presses 'c', and then if you call it again it will block until another key is pressed.
getAsync() is a little different. It's designed for something that does a lot of processing, then occasionally comes back and checks which keys were pressed. Thus getAsync() returns a list of all the keys pressed since the last call to getAsync(), in order from oldest key pressed to most recent key pressed. It also doesn't block, meaning that if no keys have been pressed since the last call to getAsync(), an empty [] will be returned.
To actually start capturing keys, you need to call keys.startCapture() with your keys object made above. startCapture is non-blocking, and simply starts one thread that just records the key presses, and another thread to process those key presses. There are two threads to ensure that the thread that records key presses doesn't miss any keys.
If you want to stop capturing keys, you can call keys.stopCapture() and it will stop capturing keys. However, since capturing a key is a blocking operation, the thread capturing keys might capture one more key after calling stopCapture().
To prevent this, you can pass in an optional parameter(s) into startCapture(functionName, args) of a function that just does something like checks if a key equals 'c' and then exits. It's important that this function does very little before, for example, a sleep here will cause us to miss keys.
However, if stopCapture() is called in this function, key captures will be stopped immediately, without trying to capture any more, and that all get() calls will be returned immediately, with None if no keys have been pressed yet.
Also, since get() and getAsync() store all the previous keys pressed (until you retrieve them), you can call clearGetList() and clearAsyncList() to forget the keys previously pressed.
Note that get(), getAsync() and events are independent, so if a key is pressed:
One call to get() that is waiting, with lossy on, will return
that key. The other waiting calls (if any) will continue waiting.
That key will be stored in the queue of get keys, so that get() with lossy off will return the oldest key pressed not returned by get() yet.
All events will be fired with that key as their input
That key will be stored in the list of getAsync() keys, where that lis twill be returned and set to empty list on the next call to getAsync()
If all this is too much, here is an example use case:
import keyPress
import time
import threading
def KeyPressed(k, printLock):
printLock.acquire()
print "Event: " + k
printLock.release()
time.sleep(4)
printLock.acquire()
print "Event after delay: " + k
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlocking(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get()
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Block " + keyReceived
else:
print "Block None"
printLock.release()
def GetKeyBlockingLossy(keys, printLock):
while keys.capturing():
keyReceived = keys.get(lossy=True)
time.sleep(1)
printLock.acquire()
if not keyReceived is None:
print "Lossy: " + keyReceived
else:
print "Lossy: None"
printLock.release()
def CheckToClose(k, (keys, printLock)):
printLock.acquire()
print "Close: " + k
printLock.release()
if k == "c":
keys.stopCapture()
printLock = threading.Lock()
print "Press a key:"
print "You pressed: " + keyPress.getKey()
print ""
keys = keyPress.KeyCapture()
keys.addEvent(KeyPressed, printLock)
print "Starting capture"
keys.startCapture(CheckToClose, (keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlocking, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThread.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThread.start()
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy = threading.Thread(target=GetKeyBlockingLossy, args=(keys, printLock))
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.daemon = True
getKeyBlockingThreadLossy.start()
while keys.capturing():
keysPressed = keys.getAsync()
printLock.acquire()
if keysPressed != []:
print "Async: " + str(keysPressed)
printLock.release()
time.sleep(1)
print "done capturing"
It is working well for me from the simple test I made, but I will happily take others feedback as well if there is something I missed.
I posted this here as well.

This might be a use case for a context manager. Leaving aside allowances for Windows OS, here's my suggestion:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# file: 'readchar.py'
"""
Implementation of a way to get a single character of input
without waiting for the user to hit <Enter>.
(OS is Linux, Ubuntu 14.04)
"""
import tty, sys, termios
class ReadChar():
def __enter__(self):
self.fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
self.old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(self.fd)
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return sys.stdin.read(1)
def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
termios.tcsetattr(self.fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, self.old_settings)
def test():
while True:
with ReadChar() as rc:
char = rc
if ord(char) <= 32:
print("You entered character with ordinal {}."\
.format(ord(char)))
else:
print("You entered character '{}'."\
.format(char))
if char in "^C^D":
sys.exit()
if __name__ == "__main__":
test()

If I'm doing something complicated I'll use curses to read keys. But a lot of times I just want a simple Python 3 script that uses the standard library and can read arrow keys, so I do this:
import sys, termios, tty
key_Enter = 13
key_Esc = 27
key_Up = '\033[A'
key_Dn = '\033[B'
key_Rt = '\033[C'
key_Lt = '\033[D'
fdInput = sys.stdin.fileno()
termAttr = termios.tcgetattr(0)
def getch():
tty.setraw(fdInput)
ch = sys.stdin.buffer.raw.read(4).decode(sys.stdin.encoding)
if len(ch) == 1:
if ord(ch) < 32 or ord(ch) > 126:
ch = ord(ch)
elif ord(ch[0]) == 27:
ch = '\033' + ch[1:]
termios.tcsetattr(fdInput, termios.TCSADRAIN, termAttr)
return ch

You could use click. It's well-tested and works on Linux, Mac & Windows.
import click
print('Continue? [yn] ')
c = click.getchar() # Gets a single character
if c == 'y':
print('We will go on')
elif c == 'n':
print('Abort!')
else:
print('Invalid input :(')

This is NON-BLOCKING, reads a key and and stores it in keypress.key.
import Tkinter as tk
class Keypress:
def __init__(self):
self.root = tk.Tk()
self.root.geometry('300x200')
self.root.bind('<KeyPress>', self.onKeyPress)
def onKeyPress(self, event):
self.key = event.char
def __eq__(self, other):
return self.key == other
def __str__(self):
return self.key
in your programm
keypress = Keypress()
while something:
do something
if keypress == 'c':
break
elif keypress == 'i':
print('info')
else:
print("i dont understand %s" % keypress)

The ActiveState's recipe seems to contain a little bug for "posix" systems that prevents Ctrl-C from interrupting (I'm using Mac). If I put the following code in my script:
while(True):
print(getch())
I will never be able to terminate the script with Ctrl-C, and I have to kill my terminal to escape.
I believe the following line is the cause, and it's also too brutal:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
Asides from that, package tty is not really needed, termios is enough to handle it.
Below is the improved code that works for me (Ctrl-C will interrupt), with the extra getche function that echo the char as you type:
if sys.platform == 'win32':
import msvcrt
getch = msvcrt.getch
getche = msvcrt.getche
else:
import sys
import termios
def __gen_ch_getter(echo):
def __fun():
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
oldattr = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
newattr = oldattr[:]
try:
if echo:
# disable ctrl character printing, otherwise, backspace will be printed as "^?"
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHOCTL)
else:
lflag = ~(termios.ICANON | termios.ECHO)
newattr[3] &= lflag
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, newattr)
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
if echo and ord(ch) == 127: # backspace
# emulate backspace erasing
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/47962872/404271
sys.stdout.write('\b \b')
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, oldattr)
return ch
return __fun
getch = __gen_ch_getter(False)
getche = __gen_ch_getter(True)
References:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/getch

Try this with pygame:
import pygame
pygame.init() // eliminate error, pygame.error: video system not initialized
keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
if keys[pygame.K_SPACE]:
d = "space key"
print "You pressed the", d, "."

A comment in one of the other answers mentioned cbreak mode, which is important for Unix implementations because you generally don't want ^C (KeyboardError) to be consumed by getchar (as it will when you set the terminal to raw mode, as done by most other answers).
Another important detail is that if you're looking to read one character and not one byte, you should read 4 bytes from the input stream, as that's the maximum number of bytes a single character will consist of in UTF-8 (Python 3+). Reading only a single byte will produce unexpected results for multi-byte characters such as keypad arrows.
Here's my changed implementation for Unix:
import contextlib
import os
import sys
import termios
import tty
_MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH = 4
#contextlib.contextmanager
def _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
"""
A context manager that saves the tty flags of a file descriptor upon
entering and restores them upon exiting.
"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(file_descriptor)
try:
yield
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(file_descriptor, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
def get_character(file=sys.stdin):
"""
Read a single character from the given input stream (defaults to sys.stdin).
"""
file_descriptor = file.fileno()
with _tty_reset(file_descriptor):
tty.setcbreak(file_descriptor)
return os.read(file_descriptor, _MAX_CHARACTER_BYTE_LENGTH)

The curses package in python can be used to enter "raw" mode for character input from the terminal with just a few statements. Curses' main use is to take over the screen for output, which may not be what you want. This code snippet uses print() statements instead, which are usable, but you must be aware of how curses changes line endings attached to output.
#!/usr/bin/python3
# Demo of single char terminal input in raw mode with the curses package.
import sys, curses
def run_one_char(dummy):
'Run until a carriage return is entered'
char = ' '
print('Welcome to curses', flush=True)
while ord(char) != 13:
char = one_char()
def one_char():
'Read one character from the keyboard'
print('\r? ', flush= True, end = '')
## A blocking single char read in raw mode.
char = sys.stdin.read(1)
print('You entered %s\r' % char)
return char
## Must init curses before calling any functions
curses.initscr()
## To make sure the terminal returns to its initial settings,
## and to set raw mode and guarantee cleanup on exit.
curses.wrapper(run_one_char)
print('Curses be gone!')

TL;DR: here is your no-dependencies-crossplatform maximum density copy-pasta
I know I was looking for that ☝️. You came here from google and want something that will just work without pip install this-and-that? I'm fairly sure this solution will continue working for a long time.
Example use
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just normal key like a
'a'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # a but its shift or capslock
'A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # just bare enter
'\r'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # literal ESC key
'\x1b'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on linux
'\x1b[A'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # one of the arrow keys on windows
'àK'
>>> getch_but_it_actually_works() # some really obscure key-combo. still works.
'\x1b[19;6~'
Crossplatform solution, no external dependencies
Scroll for more detailed answer at the end with sane indentation and commenting. This is maximum density preview for easy copy-pasting. Just call getch_but_it_actually_works()
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win(): return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char): return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
try: msvcrt.ungetwch("a")
except OSError: return msvcrt.getwch()
else: _ = msvcrt.getwch(); return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()); tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings); return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char): return True if char == "\x1b" else False
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()); os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False)
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1): buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True); termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump: return buffer_dump
else: return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_win, _char_can_be_escape_win, _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios, tty, sys
read_one_wdchar, char_can_escape, dump_key_buffer = _read_one_wide_char_nix, _char_can_be_escape_nix, _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
wchar = read_one_wdchar()
if char_can_escape(wchar): dump = dump_key_buffer(); return wchar + dump
else: return wchar
The long answer, code with comments and sane indentation
Here is the long answer with all the comments. Still no dependencies.
This will in all likelihood work for long time on both linux and windows. No external dependencies, only built-ins.
It will also deal with edge cases like hitting arrow keys or something obscure like <ctrl + shift + f12> which will produce long ANSI escape sequence on linux and something else on windows. It will capture things like <ctrl+x> or <ctrl+z> or tab or F1-12 as single input
I have come back to this post literally dozens of times of the years so now it is time for me to give back the two cents and interest. Below is the fully commented code.
The example is somewhat long but you can skip reading most of it. The relevant bit is at the very end, you can just copy-paste the entire thing.
import os
def _read_one_wide_char_win():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
return msvcrt.getwch()
def _char_can_be_escape_win(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char in ("\x00", "à") else False # \x00 is null character
def _dump_keyboard_buff_win():
"""If piece of multipart keycode in buffer, return it. Else return None"""
try: # msvcrt.kbhit wont work with msvcrt.getwch
msvcrt.ungetwch("a") # check buffer status by ungetching wchr
except OSError: # ungetch fails > something in buffer so >
return msvcrt.getwch() # return the buffer note: win multipart keys
else: # are always 2 parts. if ungetwch does not fail
_ = msvcrt.getwch() # clean up and return empty string
return ""
def _read_one_wide_char_nix():
"""Wait keyhit return chr. Get only 1st chr if multipart key like arrow"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # set raw mode to catch raw key w/o enter
wchar = sys.stdin.read(1)
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
return wchar
def _char_can_be_escape_nix(char):
"""Return true if char could start a multipart key code (e.g.: arrows)"""
return True if char == "\x1b" else False # "\x1b" is literal esc-key
def _dump_keyboard_buff_nix():
"""If parts of multipart keycode in buffer, return them. Otherwise None"""
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno()) # save settings
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno()) # raw to read single key w/o enter
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), False) # dont block for empty buffer
buffer_dump = ""
while char := sys.stdin.read(1):
buffer_dump += char
os.set_blocking(sys.stdin.fileno(), True) # restore normal settings
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), termios.TCSANOW, old_settings)
if buffer_dump:
return buffer_dump
else:
return ""
if os.name == "nt":
import msvcrt
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_win
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_win
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_win
if os.name == "posix":
import termios
import tty
import sys
read_one_wdchar = _read_one_wide_char_nix
char_can_escape = _char_can_be_escape_nix
dump_key_buffer = _dump_keyboard_buff_nix
def getch_but_it_actually_works():
"""Returns a printable character or a keycode corresponding to special key
like arrow or insert. Compatible with windows and linux, no external libs
except for builtins. Uses different builtins for windows and linux.
This function is more accurately called:
"get_wide_character_or_keycode_if_the_key_was_nonprintable()"
e.g.:
* returns "e" if e was pressed
* returns "E" if shift or capslock was on
* returns "x1b[19;6~'" for ctrl + shift + F8 on unix
You can use string.isprintable() if you need to sometimes print the output
and sometimes use it for menu control and such. Printing raw ansi escape
codes can cause your terminal to do things like move cursor three rows up.
Enter will return "\ r" on all platforms (without the space seen here)
as the enter key will produce carriage return, but windows and linux
interpret it differently in different contexts on higher level
"""
wchar = read_one_wdchar() # get first char from key press or key combo
if char_can_escape(wchar): # if char is escapecode, more may be waiting
dump = dump_key_buffer() # dump buffer to check if more were waiting.
return wchar + dump # return escape+buffer. buff could be just ""
else: # if buffer was empty then we return a single
return wchar # key like "e" or "\x1b" for the ESC button

I believe that this is one the most elegant solution.
import os
if os.name == 'nt':
import msvcrt
def getch():
return msvcrt.getch().decode()
else:
import sys, tty, termios
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
def getch():
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
finally:
termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
return ch
and then use it in the code:
if getch() == chr(ESC_ASCII_VALUE):
print("ESC!")

Simplest cross platform solution is sshkeyboard. Install with pip install sshkeyboard,
then write script such as:
from sshkeyboard import listen_keyboard
def press(key):
print(f"'{key}' pressed")
def release(key):
print(f"'{key}' released")
listen_keyboard(
on_press=press,
on_release=release,
)
And it will print:
'a' pressed
'a' released
When A key is pressed. ESC key ends the listening by default.
It requires less coding than for example curses, tkinter and getch.

My solution for python3, not depending on any pip packages.
# precondition: import tty, sys
def query_yes_no(question, default=True):
"""
Ask the user a yes/no question.
Returns immediately upon reading one-char answer.
Accepts multiple language characters for yes/no.
"""
if not sys.stdin.isatty():
return default
if default:
prompt = "[Y/n]?"
other_answers = "n"
else:
prompt = "[y/N]?"
other_answers = "yjosiá"
print(question,prompt,flush= True,end=" ")
oldttysettings = tty.tcgetattr(sys.stdin.fileno())
try:
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())
return not sys.stdin.read(1).lower() in other_answers
except:
return default
finally:
tty.tcsetattr(sys.stdin.fileno(), tty.TCSADRAIN , oldttysettings)
sys.stdout.write("\r\n")
tty.tcdrain(sys.stdin.fileno())

The accepted answer didn't perform that well for me (I'd hold a key, nothing would happen, then I'd press another key and it would work).
After learning about the curses module, it really seems like the right way to go. And it's now available for Windows through windows-cursors (available through pip), so you can program in a platform agnostic manner. Here's an example inspired by this nice tutorial on YouTube:
import curses
def getkey(stdscr):
curses.curs_set(0)
while True:
key = stdscr.getch()
if key != -1:
break
return key
if __name__ == "__main__":
print(curses.wrapper(getkey))
Save it with a .py extension, or run curses.wrapper(getkey) in interactive mode.

Answered here: raw_input in python without pressing enter
Use this code-
from tkinter import Tk, Frame
def __set_key(e, root):
"""
e - event with attribute 'char', the released key
"""
global key_pressed
if e.char:
key_pressed = e.char
root.destroy()
def get_key(msg="Press any key ...", time_to_sleep=3):
"""
msg - set to empty string if you don't want to print anything
time_to_sleep - default 3 seconds
"""
global key_pressed
if msg:
print(msg)
key_pressed = None
root = Tk()
root.overrideredirect(True)
frame = Frame(root, width=0, height=0)
frame.bind("<KeyRelease>", lambda f: __set_key(f, root))
frame.pack()
root.focus_set()
frame.focus_set()
frame.focus_force() # doesn't work in a while loop without it
root.after(time_to_sleep * 1000, func=root.destroy)
root.mainloop()
root = None # just in case
return key_pressed
def __main():
c = None
while not c:
c = get_key("Choose your weapon ... ", 2)
print(c)
if __name__ == "__main__":
__main()
Reference: https://github.com/unfor19/mg-tools/blob/master/mgtools/get_key_pressed.py

If you want to register only one single key press even if the user pressed it for more than once or kept pressing the key longer.
To avoid getting multiple pressed inputs use the while loop and pass it.
import keyboard
while(True):
if(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
s+=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('w')):
pass
if(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
s-=1
while(keyboard.is_pressed('s')):
pass
print(s)

The build-in raw_input should help.
for i in range(3):
print ("So much work to do!")
k = raw_input("Press any key to continue...")
print ("Ok, back to work.")

if you just want to hold the screen so you can see the result on the terminal just write
input()
at the end of the code and it will hold the screen

Develop Reference

Python is a programming language that lets you work quickly and integrate systems more effectively.

Detecting ESCAPE key in python [duplicate] - python

I'd do what Mickey Chan said, but I'd use unicurses instead of normal curses. Unicurses is universal (works on all or at least almost all operating systems)

If you just want a single "escape" from a loop, you can intercept the Ctrl-C signal. This is cross-platform and very simple! import signal import sys def signal_handler(sig, frame): print('You pressed Ctrl+C!') sys.exit(0) signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler) while True: # do your work here

With python3.3 and above you can use the asyncio module as mentioned in this answer. You will have to re factor your code though to work with asyncio. Prompt for user input using python asyncio.create_server instance

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