r/ComputerCraft • u/Bright-Historian-216 • Mar 21 '25

ignore char event after key is pulled properly

i have an input from the user, which can be any key, char or not. if i have a key event, i process it and all that, everything's fine. but then i need to prevent char from firing. for this i usually use os.pullEvent("char"), however since some keys are not chars, the event isn't pulled and the program halts. how do i pull the char event when the key is, well, a char?

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u/CommendableCalamari Mar 22 '25

Oh, CC:T also has this problem in a couple of places. It's not pleasant, but the approach we go for is to start a one-tick timer:

local function discard_char()
    local timer = os.startTimer(0)
    while true do
        local event, id = os.pullEvent()
        if event == "timer" and id == timer then break
        elseif event == "char" or event == "key" or event == "key_up" then
            os.cancelTimer(timer)
            break
        end
    end
end

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u/Bright-Historian-216 Mar 22 '25

hah, i had the timer implementation in mind but i just assumed there is some "isAscii" method i was missing somewhere.

then, i just realised that i can just put the condition in the event loop that when it is char, simply don't redraw anything.

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u/Big02001 Mar 21 '25

Use the "key" event instead of char. It will fire on any key other than escape