Question

want to ask user to input something but not want to wait forever. There is a solution for Linux, Keyboard input with timeout in Python, but I am in windows environment. anybody can help me?

Answer 1

Credit to Alex Martelli

Unfortunately, on Windows,
select.select works only on sockets,
not ordinary files nor the console.
So, if you want to run on Windows, you
need a different approach. On Windows
only, the Python standard library has
a small module named msvcrt, including
functions such as msvcrt.kbhit which
tells you whether any keystroke is
waiting to be read. Here, you might
sys.stdout.write the prompt, then
enter a small loop (including a
time.sleep(0.2) or so) which waits to
see whether the user is pressing any
key — if so then you can
sys.stdin.readline etc, but if after
your desired timeout is over no key
has been hit, then just return the
empty string from your function.

All of this assumes that if the user
has STARTED typing something then you
want to wait indefinitely (not timeout
in the middle of their entering their
answer!). Otherwise, you have more
work to do, since you must ensure that
the user has hit a Return (which means
you must peek at exactly what’s in
sys.stdin, resp. use msvcrt.getch, one
character at a time). Fortunately, the
slightly simpler approach of waiting
indefinitely if the user has started
entering seems to be the preferable
one from a user interface viewpoint —
it lets you deal with unattended
consoles as you desire, yet IF the
user is around at all it gives the
user all the time they want to
COMPLETE their answer.