I'm working on an irl minigame where you get materials every 5 minutes. To monitor this i wanted to write a simple python script. But now there is a little roadblok,
how do you make a loop that does something every x minutes, while still running other keyboard inputs without it disrupting the loop?
Here's a fairly simple example of using a threading.Timer. It displays the current time every 5 seconds while responding to user input.
This code will run in any terminal that supports ANSI / VT100 Terminal Control Escape Sequences.
#!/usr/bin/env python3
''' Scrolling Timer
Use a threading Timer loop to display the current time
while processing user input
See https://stackoverflow.com/q/45130837/4014959
Written by PM 2Ring 2017.07.18
'''
import readline
from time import ctime
from threading import Timer
# Some ANSI/VT100 Terminal Control Escape Sequences
CSI = '\x1b['
CLEAR = CSI + '2J'
CLEAR_LINE = CSI + '2K'
SAVE_CURSOR = CSI + 's'
UNSAVE_CURSOR = CSI + 'u'
GOTO_LINE = CSI + '%d;0H'
def emit(*args):
print(*args, sep='', end='', flush=True)
# Show the current time in the top line using a Timer thread loop
def show_time(interval):
global timer
emit(SAVE_CURSOR, GOTO_LINE % 1, CLEAR_LINE, ctime(), UNSAVE_CURSOR)
timer = Timer(interval, show_time, (interval,))
timer.start()
# Set up scrolling, leaving the top line fixed
emit(CLEAR, CSI + '2;r', GOTO_LINE % 2)
# Start the timer loop
show_time(interval=5)
try:
while True:
# Get user input and print it in upper case
print(input('> ').upper())
except KeyboardInterrupt:
timer.cancel()
# Cancel scrolling
emit('\n', SAVE_CURSOR, CSI + '0;0r', UNSAVE_CURSOR)
You need to send a KeyboardInterrupt, that is, hit CtrlC to stop this program,
Maybe a timer will be helpful for your task. I recommend you to check this link: https://docs.python.org/2.4/lib/timer-objects.html. While the timer is counting you are able to do other tasks and when the time is up, you can attach a function to the timer to do something. Timers from this library inherits from Threads
