How do I make it so taking input does not interrupt program execution

September 25, 2023

I need to take input from the user while being able to print, kind of like threading.

For example:

1 +----------+
2 |Input here|
3 |          |
4 |          |
5 |          |
6 +----------+

Normally the user would have to input something before printing lines 3 to 6 is executed.

>Solution :

This is using the "standard" library curses

You might need to do
pip install windows-curses
for this to work on Windows, otherwise you might get ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_curses'


import curses

def main(stdscr):
    curses.curs_set(0)
    stdscr.clear()
    stdscr.refresh()

    text = "Input here"
    y, x = 0, 0
    
    while True:
        stdscr.clear()


        stdscr.addstr("\n")
        square = f"+{'-' * (len(text) + 2)}+\n"
        square += f"| {text} |\n"
        square += f"|{' ' * (len(text) + 2)}|\n" * 4
        square += f"+{'-' * (len(text) + 2)}+"
        stdscr.addstr(y, x, square)

        stdscr.refresh()

        key = stdscr.getch()
        
        if key == 8:
            text = text[:-1]
        elif key == 10:
            break
        elif key >= 32 and key <= 126:
            text += chr(key)
        
    return text

if __name__ == "__main__":
    user_input = curses.wrapper(main)
    print(f"User input was: {user_input}")

Very simple but it shows what you can do.