c# reading user input without stopping an app

Question

I know I can use ReadKey for that but it will freeze the app until user presses a key. Is it possible (in console app) to have some loop running and still be able to react? I can only think of events but not sure how to use them in console. My idea was that the loop would check for input during each iteration.

Answer 1

They way I have done this for my own application was to have a dedicated thread that calls into System.Console.ReadKey(true) and puts the keys pressed (and any other events) into a message queue.

The main thread then services this queue in a loop (in a similar fashion to the main loop in a Win32 application), ensuring that rendering and event processing is all handled on a single thread.

private void StartKeyboardListener()
{
    var thread = new Thread(() => {
                                      while (!this.stopping)
                                      {
                                          ConsoleKeyInfo key = System.Console.ReadKey(true);
                                          this.messageQueue.Enqueue(new KeyboardMessage(key));
                                      }
                                  });

    thread.IsBackground = true;
    thread.Start();
}

private void MessageLoop()
{
    while (!this.stopping)
    {
        Message message = this.messageQueue.Dequeue(DEQUEUE_TIMEOUT);

        if (message != null)
        {
            switch (message.MessageType)
            {
                case MessageType.Keyboard:
                    HandleKeyboardMessage((KeyboardMessage) message);
                    break;
                ...
            }
        }

        Thread.Yield(); // or Thread.Sleep(0)
    }
}