Detect keyboard input with support of Unicode in python

Question

I want to detect keystrokes in python code. I already try a lot of methods with different libraries but all of them cant detect the UTF keyboard input and only detect Ascii. For example, I want to detect Unicode characters like ("د") or ("ۼ") if a user typed these keys. It means that if I press Alt+Shift it changes my input to another language that uses Unicode characters and I want to detect them.

IMPORTANT: I need the Windows version.

It must detect keystrokes even not focusing on the terminal.

Suppose this simple example:

from pynput import keyboard
def on_press(key):
    try:
        print(key.char)
    except AttributeError:
        print(key)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    with keyboard.Listener(on_press=on_press) as listener:
            listener.join()

Answer 1

A lot depends on the operating system and keyboard entry method, but this works on my Ubuntu system; I tested with some Spanish characters.

import sys
import tty
import termios

def getch():
    fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
    old_settings = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
    try:
        tty.setraw(fd)
        ch = sys.stdin.read(1)
    finally:
        termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_settings)
    return ch

x = getch()
print("You typed: ", x, " which is Unicode ", ord(x))

Here's the same keystroke in English vs. Spanish:

$ python3 unicode-keystroke.py
You typed:  :  which is Unicode  58

$ python3 unicode-keystroke.py
You typed:  Ñ  which is Unicode  209

The getch function is from ActiveState.

Answer 2

Alternative to pynput that works also over ssh: sshkeyboard. Install with pip install sshkeyboard,

then write script such as:

from sshkeyboard import listen_keyboard

def press(key):
    print(f"'{key}' pressed")

def release(key):
    print(f"'{key}' released")

listen_keyboard(
    on_press=press,
    on_release=release,
)

And it will print:

'a' pressed
'a' released

When A key is pressed. ESC key ends the listening by default.