CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Ind Oubt
Ind Oubt

Reputation: 151

How to manage real time input with periodic updates

I have a block at position (0,0). Periodically (say every 1 second) the y-coordinate of the block will randomly get updated by +/-1.

And every time the user also inputs a character (+/-) the x-coordinate will be updated by +/-1 as the user has inputted.

If it was only the x coord, I could create a while loop, that runs into the next iteration when input() gets a value.

But how can I deal with both the periodic update as well as the real time input (which can come at any time?)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 136

Answers (1)

Morgoth
Morgoth

Reputation: 5176

Threading is your friend:

import time
from threading import Thread


# This defines the thread that handles console input
class UserInputThread(Thread):
    def __init__ (self):
        Thread.__init__(self)

    # Process user input here:
    def run(self):
        while True:
            text = input("input: ")
            print("You said", text)
            # Exit the thread
            if text == "exit":
                return


console_thread = UserInputThread()
console_thread.start()

while True:
    time.sleep(5)
    print("function")
    # If the thread is dead, the programme will exit when the current iteration of the while loop ends.
    if not console_thread.is_alive():
        break

UserInputThread runs in the background and handles the user input. print("function") could be any logic you need to do in the main thread.

Upvotes: 1

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