No value and no error from event handler

Question

Whenever I press the ESC key (anywhere on my desktop), I would like to print a message.

This is what I have so far:

from msvcrt import getch
while True:
    key = ord(getch())
    if key == 27:
        print('Key pressed.')

When I run this code and hit ESC, I get nothing - not even an error. Why?

print(key) keeps giving me 255 repeatedly, even if I press nothing.

i managed to make this code work on a windows with python and ironpython, inside the REPL, as Mothrakk said — PRMoureu, Jul 06 '17 at 18:38

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 06 '17 at 18:38

2

Your code works just fine if you open the script through the console (double click on the file, not with IDLE).

You want a low-level keyboard hook. This simply listens to the keypresses made to the console, not anywhere else.

answered Jul 06 '17 at 18:38

Mothrakk

1

Yeah this [stack overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16076853/using-msvcrt-getch-in-eclipse-pydev) discussion talks about how it doesn't work unless you use the console or another method. – Professor_Joykill Jul 06 '17 at 18:40

1 Answers1