how to make a counter in python

Question

I am trying to make a counter so if I type 'bye' it starts counting how long it has been since I said bye but the problem is that I can't type anything to stop the counter and I don't know how to have it tell you something when you type something to stop it. Here is my code for a counter but I tried to type something and it does not stop:

import time
s = 0
m = 0
h = 0
while s<=60:
    print h, 'Hours', m, 'Minutes', s, 'Seconds'
    time.sleep(1)
    s+=1
    if s == 60:
        m+=1
        s = 0
    elif m ==60:
        h+=1
        m = 0
        s = 0

Answer 1

Consider using threading.Thread:

import time
import threading
class MyTimer(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self):
        self.h = 0
        self.m = 0
        self.s = 0

    def count(self, t, stop_event):
        while self.s <= 60:
            print self.h, 'Hours', self.m, 'Minutes', self.s, 'Seconds'
            time.sleep(1)
            self.s += 1
            if self.s == 60:
                self.m += 1
                self.s = 0
            elif self.m == 60:
                self.h += 1
                self.m = 0
                self.s = 0
            elif stop_event.is_set():
                print self.h, 'Hours', self.m, 'Minutes', self.s, 'Seconds'
                break

class Asking(threading.Thread):
    def asking(self, t, stop_event):
        while not stop_event.is_set():
            word = raw_input('enter a word:\n')
            if word == 'bye':
                timer_stop.set()
                question_stop.set()

timer = MyTimer()
question = Asking()
question_stop = threading.Event()
timer_stop = threading.Event()
threading.Thread(target=question.asking, args=(1, question_stop)).start()
threading.Thread(target=timer.count, args=(2, timer_stop)).start()

Running it as an example:

$ python stackoverflow.py
enter a word:
0 Hours 0 Minutes 0 Seconds
0 Hours 0 Minutes 1 Seconds
0 Hours 0 Minutes 2 Seconds
0 Hours 0 Minutes 3 Seconds
hi
enter a word:
0 Hours 0 Minutes 4 Seconds
0 Hours 0 Minutes 5 Seconds
0 Hours 0 Minutes 6 Seconds
bye
0 Hours 0 Minutes 7 Seconds

The code could probably be a bit more neater :p. I shocked myself that I was able to produce this :D.

Answer 2

The only way I know is with pygame. It would set up a normal pygame loop, except having it only being 1 by 1, so you can see the background window, and when you enter in a letter it would exit the pygame loop.

Answer 3

maybe better...

    .....
    .....
    while self.s <= 60:
        print self.h, 'Hours', self.m, 'Minutes', self.s, 'Seconds'
        time.sleep(1)
        self.s += 1
        if self.s == 60:
            self.m += 1
            self.s = 0

            if self.m == 60:
               self.h += 1
               self.m = 0

        elif stop_event.is_set():
            print self.h, 'Hours', self.m, 'Minutes', self.s, 'Seconds'
            break
        ......
        ......