Allowing users to delete user input in python

Question

This is a pretty basic question I'm having trouble with. I have a python program, and when I use raw_input to get user input, whenever I try to delete something the user already types, this symbol appears: ^H, instead of allowing me to delete what I have already typed. How can I allow users to delete previous things they've typed?

Answer 1

If you import the readline module, raw_input() should use it with no further modification, and you'll get better control sequence support.

More info: http://docs.python.org/2/library/readline.html

Answer 2

In you case you will want to play with the cmd module. Like this:

import cmd
import sys, string
class CLI(cmd.Cmd):
    def __init__(self):
        cmd.Cmd.__init__(self)
        self.prompt = '> '
        self.text=''
    def do_input(self, arg):
        self.text=arg
        sys.exit(1)

Try it out:

">>> cli=CLI()

">>> cli.cmdloop()

"> input test

">>> cli.text

'test'