How to do this in Python?

[kevin11951]

How do I make Python listen for external input while running? I don't mean "raw_input()", I mean where the program will be running happily, and then if I press "q" while its running, it quits... Or something along those lines...

[ssam]

simplest method is to catch the KeyboardInterrupt exception that is generated when the user presses ctrl+C

try:
  code_that_takes_long_time()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
  print "stopped"
  clean_up()

otherwise you may need to look at a terminal handling library like curses.

[kevin11951]

simplest method is to catch the KeyboardInterrupt exception that is generated when the user presses ctrl+C

try:
  code_that_takes_long_time()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
  print "stopped"
  clean_up()

otherwise you may need to look at a terminal handling library like curses.

So there is no way to do two things at once in Python?

[ssam]

you can use threads.