How to efficiently hold a key in Pygame?

Question

I\'ve found two related questions:

• Pygame hold key down causes an infinite loop
• pygame - on hold button down

But I want to be specific. H

Answer 1

I like to take a slightly different approach to this problem. Instead of checking if the key is pressed and taking some action when it is, set a flag on key down and unset it on key up. Then in the function to update the player's position, check the flag and update accordingly. The following pseudo-Python explains what I'm getting at:

if down_key_pressed:
    down_flag = True
elif down_key_released:
    down_flag = False
elif right_key_pressed:
    etc...

This should be done in a separate loop that takes the player's input. Then in update_player_position() you can do:

if down_flag:
    move_player_down()
elif right_flag:
    move_player_right()

This example assumes four-directional movement, but you could extend it to eight-directional fairly easily by just using if down_flag and right_flag instead.