I can only call my definition once: Python 3

Question

I borrowed some code from another thread I found on this website, but when I tried to form a program around it, I found that one of my functions can only be called once.

import tkinter as tk

def total():
    #borrowed code vvv
    def keyDetect(event):
        root.destroy()
        if event.char == event.keysym:
            print(event.char)
        elif len(event.char) == 1:
            print(event.keysym, event.char)
        else:
            print(event.keysym)


    root = tk.Tk()
    root.bind_all('<Key>', keyDetect)
    root.withdraw()
    root.mainloop()
    #borrowed code ^^^

total()
print('test message #1')
total()

When this code is run, the definition 'total()' works the first time, but not the second. Why? And how do I fix it?

Thanks in advance!

---

EDIT:

If you remove the definition completely, the code still doesn't work

import tkinter as tk

def keyDetect(event):
    root.destroy()
    if event.char == event.keysym:
        print(event.char)
    elif len(event.char) == 1:
        print(event.keysym, event.char)
    else:
        print(event.keysym)


root = tk.Tk()
root.bind_all('<Key>', keyDetect)
root.withdraw()
root.mainloop()

print('1')
root = tk.Tk()
root.bind_all('<Key>', keyDetect)
print('2')
root.withdraw()
print('3')
root.mainloop()
print('4')

But doing this does show where the problem is; as when this code is run "3" is printed, but "4" isn't.

Answer 1

TkInter is not the right library for console interaction. Use curses instead. Otherwise, your program won't work without the DISPLAY variable defined (i.e. when not run in X11). I tried your program on Ubuntu 14.10 and it doesn't capture any events at all. If I comment out root.withdraw(), both calls to total() work.