Terminating raw_input() if other text displays

I have a simple server application I made in Python using SocketServer, it has a very primitive command line type input system. My main problem here is that when the server receives a message, it prints it to the screen. This is all fine and good except that the raw_input function is still waiting for text to entered and checked. Is there a way to, in the server handle() function, stop the raw_input or raise some exception that would end the input and display the information that the server is receiving?

Thanks,
Zack.

Solution

As far as I know, this isn't possible because raw_input accepts input from the python command console. There are, however, some ways to get around it that may not be expected:

1 - Instead of using the console, create a simple Tkinter window with the output and an input line. Create a custom print function that appends the message to the end of the window text, (Which could be in a scroll bar using a fixed-width font) and then create a command prompt box that responds to enter. The code for that would look something like this:

from Tkinter import *
root = Tk()
topframe=Frame(root)
bottomframe=Frame(root)
bottomframe.pack(side=BOTTOM,fill=X)
topframe.pack(side=TOP,fill=BOTH)
scrollbar = Scrollbar(topframe)
scrollbar.pack(side=RIGHT,fill=Y)
text = Text(topframe,yscrollcommand=scrollbar.set)
text.pack(side=LEFT,fill=BOTH)
scrollbar.config(command=text.yview)
text.config(state=DISABLED)
v = StringVar()
e = Entry(bottomframe,textvariable=v)
def submit():
    command = v.get()
    v.set('')
    #your input handling code goes here.
    wprint(command)
    #end your input handling
e.bind('<Return>',submit)
button=Button(bottomframe,text='RUN',command=submit)
button.pack(side=RIGHT)
e.pack(expand=True,side=LEFT,fill=X)
def wprint(obj):
    text.config(state=NORMAL)
    text.insert(END,str(obj)+'\n')
    text.config(state=DISABLED)
root.mainloop()

Another option would be to create your own print and raw_input methods to look something like this:

import threading
wlock=threading.Lock()
printqueue=[]
rinput=False
def winput(text):
    with wlock:
        global printqueue,rinput
        rinput=True
        text = raw_input(text)
        rinput=False
        for text in printqueue:
            print(text)
        printqueue=[]
        return text
def wprint(obj):
    global printqueue
    if not(rinput):
        print(str(obj))
    else:
        printqueue.append(str(obj))