python – Keyboard input with timeout?

python – Keyboard input with timeout?

Using a select call is shorter, and should be much more portable

import sys, select

print You have ten seconds to answer!

i, o, e = select.select( [sys.stdin], [], [], 10 )

if (i):
  print You said, sys.stdin.readline().strip()
else:
  print You said nothing!

The example you have linked to is wrong and the exception is actually occuring when calling alarm handler instead of when read blocks. Better try this:

import signal
TIMEOUT = 5 # number of seconds your want for timeout

def interrupted(signum, frame):
    called when read times out
    print interrupted!
signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, interrupted)

def input():
    try:
            print You have 5 seconds to type in your stuff...
            foo = raw_input()
            return foo
    except:
            # timeout
            return

# set alarm
signal.alarm(TIMEOUT)
s = input()
# disable the alarm after success
signal.alarm(0)
print You typed, s

python – Keyboard input with timeout?

Not a Python solution, but…

I ran in to this problem with a script running under CentOS (Linux), and what worked for my situation was just running the Bash read -t command in a subprocess. Brutal disgusting hack, I know, but I feel guilty enough about how well it worked that I wanted to share it with everyone here.

import subprocess
subprocess.call(read -t 30, shell=True)

All I needed was something that waited for 30 seconds unless the ENTER key was pressed. This worked great.