Stopwatch between mouse up/down

Question

I am trying to test the time between mouse down and mouse up events by using a simple stopwatch in a while loop. The mouse down event works fine, but when i release the mouse for mouse up, the seconds continue to go up and do not stop.

from pygame import *
import time
screen = display.set_mode((160, 90))
sec = 0
while True:
    new_event = event.poll()
    if new_event.type == MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
        while True: # Basic stopwatch started
            time.sleep(1)
            sec += 1
            print(sec)
            # In loop, when mouse button released,
            # supposed to end stopwatch
            if new_event.type == MOUSEBUTTONUP:
                break
    display.update()

I want the stopwatch to end after the mouse is released. eg. If the mouse is just clicked, the seconds should be 1. If the mouse is held for 5 seconds, it should not continue past 5.

Answer 1

Use pygame.time.get_ticks to get the number of milliseconds since pygame.init() was called.
Store the milliseconds when MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and calculate the time difference in the main loop:

from pygame import *

screen = display.set_mode((160, 90))

clock = time.Clock()
run = True
started = False
while run:

    for new_event in event.get():
        if new_event.type == QUIT:
            run = False

        if new_event.type == MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
            start_time = time.get_ticks()
            started = True

        if new_event.type == MOUSEBUTTONUP:
            started = False

    if started:        
        current_time = time.get_ticks()
        sec = (current_time - start_time) / 1000.0
        print(sec)

    display.update()