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If you need to access hardware like input devices like keyboards, there are modules in Python that can make your life much easier. Using such modules, you can easily perform the tasks you want without having to deal with the complexity of the system.

In this article, you will learn how to use modules in Python to detect key presses. There are many modules for detecting key presses in Python, two of the most popular and widely used modules are keyboardand pynput.

keyboardDetect keystrokes in Python using the module in Python

keyboardThe module allows us to have full control over the keyboard and comes with various predefined methods for us to choose from. These methods make it easier for us to use the keyboard and detect the physical keys pressed by the user on the keyboard.

To install keyboardthe module, execute the following command in your command prompt or terminal.

pip3 install keyboard

First, you have to keyboardimport the module into your program. Here, we use three methods in Python to detect key presses, namely read_key(), , is_pressed()and on_press_key().

import keyboard

while True:
    if keyboard.read_key() == "p":
        print("You pressed p")
        break

while True:
    if keyboard.is_pressed("q"):
        print("You pressed q")
        break

keyboard.on_press_key("r", lambda _: print("You pressed r"))

Output:

You pressed p
You pressed q
You pressed r

read_key()will read the key the user pressed on the keyboard, and if it's the key you want, in this case p, it will print out You pressed pthe information of . read_key()The function returns a character.

is_pressed()The function receives a character as input and returns if it matches the key pressed by the user, Trueotherwise returns False.

on_press_key()It takes two parameters as input, the first is a character, the second is a function. If the user presses on_press_key()a key that matches the key specified by the first parameter of the function, it will only execute the function you passed in as the second parameter.

pynputDetect keystrokes in Python using the module in Python

pynputThe module is used to detect and control input devices, mainly mouse and keyboard. But in this tutorial, you will only see how to use this module to detect keys on the keyboard. Before using this module, you must first install it using the following command.

pip3 install pynput

To use this module to detect key presses, you first have to pynputimport it from the module keyboard.

from pynput import keyboard


def on_press(key):
    try:
        print("Alphanumeric key pressed: {0} ".format(key.char))
    except AttributeError:
        print("special key pressed: {0}".format(key))


def on_release(key):
    print("Key released: {0}".format(key))
    if key == keyboard.Key.esc:
        # Stop listener
        return False


# Collect events until released
with keyboard.Listener(on_press=on_press, on_release=on_release) as listener:
    listener.join()

Output:

Alphanumeric key pressed: a 
Key released: 'a' 
Alphanumeric key pressed: b
Key released: 'b'
special key pressed: Key.ctrl_l 
Key released: Key.ctrl_l

Note that the output above may vary depending on the keys pressed by the user.

To detect key presses, we define two functions, on_pressand on_release. When the user presses a key on the keyboard, function on_presswill be executed, and when the user releases the key, on_releasefunction will be executed.

Both functions simply print the keys pressed and released by the user to the console window. You can change the implementation of these two functions to suit your needs.

Then at the end, we have a listener that will listen for keyboard events and execute the on_pressand on_releasefunctions accordingly.