raw_input and timeout

python loops raw-input
ykmizu picture ykmizu · Aug 12, 2010 · Viewed 37.9k times · Source

I want to do a raw_input('Enter something: .'). I want it to sleep for 3 seconds and if there's no input, then cancel the prompt and run the rest of the code. Then the code loops and implements the raw_input again. I also want it to break if the user inputs something like 'q'.

Answer

rbp picture rbp · Aug 12, 2010

There's an easy solution that doesn't use threads (at least not explicitly): use select to know when there's something to be read from stdin:

import sys
from select import select

timeout = 10
print "Enter something:",
rlist, _, _ = select([sys.stdin], [], [], timeout)
if rlist:
    s = sys.stdin.readline()
    print s
else:
    print "No input. Moving on..."

Edit[0]: apparently this won't work on Windows, since the underlying implementation of select() requires a socket, and sys.stdin isn't. Thanks for the heads-up, @Fookatchu.

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