CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonlinuxkeykeypresssimulate
user308827
user308827

Reputation: 21961

Simulating Key Press event using Python for Linux

I am writing a script to automate running a particular model. When the model fails, it waits for a user input (Enter key). I can detect when the model has failed, but I am not able to use python (on linux) to simulate a key press event. Windows has the SendKeys library to do this but I was wondering if there is a similar library for python on linux.

Thanks!

Upvotes: 14

Views: 47550

Answers (6)

Eduardo
Eduardo

Reputation: 4382

As many of the solutions I have found in this and in another well ranked SO response were either deprecated (PyUserInput) or using evdev, which failed (UInputError: "/dev/uinput" cannot be opened for writing) the simplest solution for me using Linux was pynput. One example directly from their docs:

from pynput.keyboard import Key, Controller

keyboard = Controller()

# Press and release space
keyboard.press(Key.space)
keyboard.release(Key.space)

# Type a lower case A; this will work even if no key on the
# physical keyboard is labelled 'A'
keyboard.press('a')
keyboard.release('a')

# Type two upper case As
keyboard.press('A')
keyboard.release('A')
with keyboard.pressed(Key.shift):
    keyboard.press('a')
    keyboard.release('a')

# Type 'Hello World' using the shortcut type method
keyboard.type('Hello World')

It worked like a charm!

Upvotes: 0

Marco Sulla
Marco Sulla

Reputation: 15930

I recommend PyAutoGui. It's ridiculously simple to use, it's cross-platform and it's for Python 3 and 2.

In the linked page are listed the dependences and some code examples.

Upvotes: 2

gvalkov
gvalkov

Reputation: 4097

A more low-level approach would be to create an uinput device from which you would then inject input events into the linux input subsystem. Consider the following libraries:

Example of sending <enter> with the latter:

from evdev import uinput, ecodes as e

with uinput.UInput() as ui:
     ui.write(e.EV_KEY, e.KEY_ENTER, 1)
     ui.write(e.EV_KEY, e.KEY_ENTER, 0)
     ui.syn()

Upvotes: 10

naren
naren

Reputation: 15233

Have a look at this https://github.com/SavinaRoja/PyUserInput its cross-platform control for mouse and keyboard in python

Keyboard control works on X11(linux) and Windows systems. But no mac support(when i wrote this answer).

from pykeyboard import PyKeyboard
k = PyKeyboard()

# To Create an Alt+Tab combo
k.press_key(k.alt_key)
k.tap_key(k.tab_key)
k.release_key(k.alt_key)

Upvotes: 15

Alex Martelli
Alex Martelli

Reputation: 881477

If the "model" is running graphically (with the X window system), the already-suggested xsendkey is a possibility, or xsendkeycode. If it's running textually (in a terminal window), then pexpect.

Upvotes: 7

baol
baol

Reputation: 4358

http://people.csail.mit.edu/adonovan/hacks/xsendkey.html

Upvotes: 1

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