Why doesn't Python include non-blocking keyboard input function?

[BartC]

On 26/10/2016 13:33, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> BartC <bc at freeuk.com>:
>
>> On 26/10/2016 05:44, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> (I've implemented 'keyboards' both on-screen, and on the surface of
>> digitising tablets (also with a hacked Casio calculator pcb when I
>> couldn't afford a real one). With all of those I was mainly interested
>> in key events, not the details.)
>
> Say you want to implement a simple, character-based shooting game where
> the two guns are operated by the [Shift] keys. Unfortunately, the Unix
> terminal API doesn't make that possible. You need to get the keyboard
> events from some other API. In practice, your only choice is X11/Wayland
> (on Linux).

That sort of thing is possible to build by directly calling OS-specific 
functions in a similar manner to Steven D'Aprano's way of implementing 
getch().

But it's something everyone would have to code themselves.

(I just tried it using my 'getchx' function where it ought to have 
worked. Unfortunately MS' interface to key events doesn't seem to 
distinguish between left and right shift keys. But it was doable with 
left/right ctrl keys.

That's a blocking function it it means having to wait for input. But a 
version that just tests for status shouldn't be hard.)

-- 
Bartc