How to get characters input in keyboard while playing a game using python?

Question

I am making an AI to drive cars in GTA San Andreas using Tensorflow and I want to know which characters/keys are pressed at each frame using python. I cannot use input() cause my program is not in front. What I do?

Answer 1

pyHook might be something you might be looking for. All the keyboard or mouse events can be captured using Windows hooks. pyhook is a Python wrapper around the hooks API.

This answer presents a sample code for using pyhook to capture the keypress. This document provides with basics of Hook in Windows.

Below is an example, which hooks for keyboard events and prints the key pressed to console. It exits on keypress for x or X.

#!python

import pythoncom, pyHook
import sys

def OnKeyboardEvent(event):
    # block only the letter A, lower and uppercase
    print chr(event.Ascii)
    if event.Ascii in (ord('x'), ord('X')):
        sys.exit()
    # returning True to pass on event to other applications
    return True

# create a hook manager
hm = pyHook.HookManager()
# watch for all mouse events
hm.KeyDown = OnKeyboardEvent
# set the hook
hm.HookKeyboard()
# wait forever
pythoncom.PumpMessages()