CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonloopsinput
Sunny
Sunny

Reputation: 615

Do something while user input not received

In Python, in what way can I do something on loop while user has not given an input. I have python client and I ask for user input, but while user has not given an input I'd like to keep giving updates every five second.

I can't use

 while (raw_input==""):
      update()

since if input is "", it means user already entered something (hit enter);

Is there a way to do it?

UPDATE:

I still can't get anything to work for me. I tried the method below, also tried something similar to this thread: waiting for user input in separate thread. And I also tried instead passing an update() method to the thread that's supposed to be working in the background. But anything with raw_input() makes it stuck on waiting for input:

 import threading
 import time

def update():
   while True:
      time.sleep(5)
      print "update"+'\n'

mythread = threading.Thread(target=update, args=())
mythread.daemon = True
mythread.start()

while True:
   usrin=raw_input()
   print "you typed: "+usrin

Every time user inputs something, update is done and then usrin is given back. If this was what I wanted I could just easily put the update() into the last while loop.

If I were to just start this thread with update method and do nothing else in the program (scrap the last while loop), then in shell while it updates every five seconds I can still use the shell (i.e type 3+5 and it gives me 8). I want something like that to happen within the program, when user is inactive update, and if he types react and go back to updating.

NOTE: Also, I'm currently using python 2.7.8, would switching versions help?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2117

Answers (1)

jacg
jacg

Reputation: 2120

Maybe this can get you started:

from threading import Thread
from time import sleep

result = None

def update_every_second():
    while result is None:
        sleep(1)
        print "update"

t = Thread(target=update_every_second)
t.start()
result = raw_input('? ')

print "The user typed", result

Upvotes: 1

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