Possible Duplicate:
Python read a single character from the user
I am using below code.But instead of accepting a single character its allowing user to put more than a single character.
How can I fix that?
guess = raw_input(':') guessInLower = guess.lower() The following will continuously prompt the user for input until they enter exactly one character.
userInput = '' while len(userInput) != 1: userInput = raw_input(':') guessInLower = userInput.lower() This does the same, but also informs them of the one character limit before prompting again for input
while True: userInput = raw_input(':') if len(userInput) == 1: break print 'Please enter only one character' guessInLower = userInput.lower() It looks like you are expecting only letters. If that is the case you can expand this further to require that:
import string while True: userInput = raw_input(':') if len(userInput) == 1: if userInput in string.letters: break print 'Please enter only letters' else: print 'Please enter only one character' guessInLower = userInput.lower() 
By default python uses line-buffered input, which means that the raw_input() call will not return until the user hits enter. If you want to turn off the line buffering, you may have to look at OS-specific things you can do. You can find a recipe demonstrating this here.
For Python 2.7.x,
guess = raw_input(': ')[0].lower() For Python 3.x
guess = input (': ')[0].lower() in both cases, the first character from the terminal raw input string (no need for using '') will be lowered and passed by to the variable guess.
