Get python program to end by pressing anykey and not enter

Question

How can I get my Python program to end by pressing any key without pressing enter. So if the user types "c", the program should automatically end without pressing enter.

My code so far:

print("Hi everyone! This is just a quick sample code I made")
print("Press anykey to end the program.")

Use an infinite loop, like `while True:` and then `break` out of it when your user enters the desired exit key. Since you haven't posted any of your code; difficult to help you beyond this. — Burhan Khalid, Oct 20 '13 at 12:48
@Burhan Khalid, I've just up a sample code. Hope that helps. — user2899653, Oct 20 '13 at 12:49
[ctrl+c](http://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#KeyboardInterrupt) interrupts the execution. And can be catched for, e.g., cleaning up — Francesco Montesano, Oct 20 '13 at 12:52
If you are running this in the Python interpreter (with the `>>>` prompt), then you need to exit the Python interpreter itself by typing `exit()`. — Burhan Khalid, Oct 20 '13 at 12:57
Well when you start a program, let say "right click -> open in a terminal" Some OS will close the terminal as soon as the program finishes. Which mean that the actuall terminal will get closed in his case. Adding a "getch" will prevent the program from finishing and closing the terminal. As he said he wanted to handle it without pressing "enter", I assume that he already tried with something like `sys.stdin.read(1)` that will receive an input only on newline. Well any kind of input will get triggered on newline. — Loïc Faure-Lacroix, Oct 20 '13 at 13:11

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Usually, one would use input('>> ') (or raw_input('>> ') with Python3) in order to obtain a user command. However, this does require the user to submit the data after it is entered. So for your example, the user would type c then hit the Enter key.

If you're using Windows, then I think what you're after may be close to this answer. This example imports a library, msvcrt, which you can use to detect keyboard hits (using msvcrt.kbhit()). So the user would type c and your code could respond to that keystroke, without having to wait for the Enter key. Of course you will have to process the keys (i.e. check that the button was indeed a c) before executing the desired code (i.e. quit the application).

Edit: This answer assumes you have a while() loop doing stuff and/or waiting for user input. Such as the following:

import msvcrt

print("Hi everyone! This is just a quick sample code I made")
print("Press anykey to end the program.")

while(True):
    # Do stuff here.
    if msvcrt.kbhit():
        # The user entered a key. Check to see if it was a "c".
        if (msvcrt.getch() == "c"):
            break
        elif (msvcrt.getch() == <some other character>):
            # Do some other thing.

Of course to end the program for any keyboard hit, just get rid of the part that checks to see if the key is a "c".

The `msvcrt.getch()` blocks, is there any way to get the key value without blocking? — ѕняєє ѕιиgнι, Nov 18 '18 at 11:23

Get python program to end by pressing anykey and not enter

1 Answers1