Time-Limited Input? [duplicate]

If it is acceptable to block the main thread when user haven't provided an answer:

from threading import Timertimeout = 10t = Timer(timeout, print, ['Sorry, times up'])t.start()prompt = "You have %d seconds to choose the correct answer...\n" % timeoutanswer = input(prompt)t.cancel()

Otherwise, you could use @Alex Martelli's answer (modified for Python 3) on Windows (not tested):

import msvcrtimport timeclass TimeoutExpired(Exception):    passdef input_with_timeout(prompt, timeout, timer=time.monotonic):    sys.stdout.write(prompt)    sys.stdout.flush()    endtime = timer() + timeout    result = []    while timer() < endtime:        if msvcrt.kbhit():            result.append(msvcrt.getwche()) #XXX can it block on multibyte characters?            if result[-1] == '\r':                return ''.join(result[:-1])        time.sleep(0.04) # just to yield to other processes/threads    raise TimeoutExpired

Usage:

try:    answer = input_with_timeout(prompt, 10)except TimeoutExpired:    print('Sorry, times up')else:    print('Got %r' % answer)

On Unix you could try:

import selectimport sysdef input_with_timeout(prompt, timeout):    sys.stdout.write(prompt)    sys.stdout.flush()    ready, _, _ = select.select([sys.stdin], [],[], timeout)    if ready:        return sys.stdin.readline().rstrip('\n') # expect stdin to be line-buffered    raise TimeoutExpired

Or:

import signaldef alarm_handler(signum, frame):    raise TimeoutExpireddef input_with_timeout(prompt, timeout):    # set signal handler    signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, alarm_handler)    signal.alarm(timeout) # produce SIGALRM in `timeout` seconds    try:        return input(prompt)    finally:        signal.alarm(0) # cancel alarm

Interesting problem, this seems to work:

import timefrom threading import Threadanswer = Nonedef check():    time.sleep(2)    if answer != None:        return    print("Too Slow")Thread(target = check).start()answer = input("Input something: ")