How would I add a timer above other text?

Question

I would like to have a timer above an input, then end the timer once the player inputs anything.

So far I've tried using threading and sys.flush, and multithreading to terminate the thread, but I wasn't able to input anything since the timer just followed the cursor.

My Code:

def DisplayTime():
  import sys
  while True:
    sys.stdout.write('\r'+str(format_time))
    sys.stdout.flush()

displayTime = threading.Thread(name='DisplayTime', target=DisplayTime)

Somewhere else:

displayTime.start()

What happened:

>>> Text Here
>>> Timer: 0:00:00(Wait for input)

I was expecting something like this:

>>> Timer: 0:00:00
>>> Text Here
>>> (Wait for input)

>>> Timer: 0:00:01
>>> Text Here
>>> (Wait for input)

Fractalism · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-30T16:57:45.100

The following code prints a timer followed by a line of text followed by an empty line on which the cursor is displayed. start_time lets us calculate the elapsed time, and last_printed keeps track of the last printed time so we don't have to print on every iteration. The important parts are taken from other StackOverflow answers:

Move cursor up one line

Non-blocking console input

import sys
import time
import msvcrt
import datetime

start_time = time.time()
last_printed = -1
print('\n')

while True:
    elapsed_time = time.time() - start_time
    int_elapsed = int(elapsed_time)
    if int_elapsed > last_printed:
        elapsed_td = datetime.timedelta(seconds=int_elapsed)
        # Go up one line: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11474509/20103413
        sys.stdout.write('\033[F'*2 + str(elapsed_td) + '\nText here\n')
        sys.stdout.flush()
        last_printed = int_elapsed
    # Non-blocking input: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2409034/20103413
    if msvcrt.kbhit():
        print(msvcrt.getch().decode())
        break

How would I add a timer above other text?

1 Answers1