Question

I’m using raw_input in Python to interact with user in shell.

c = raw_input('Press s or n to continue:')
if c.upper() == 'S':
    print 'YES'

It works as intended, but the user has to press enter in the shell after pressing ‘s’. Is there a way to accomplish what I need from an user input without needing to press enter in the shell? I’m using *nixes machines.

Answer 1

Under Windows, you need the msvcrt module, specifically, it seems from the way you describe your problem, the function msvcrt.getch:

Read a keypress and return the
resulting character. Nothing is echoed
to the console. This call will block
if a keypress is not already
available, but will not wait for Enter
to be pressed.

(etc — see the docs I just pointed to). For Unix, see e.g. this recipe for a simple way to build a similar getch function (see also several alternatives &c in the comment thread of that recipe).