As an example of Term::ReadKey, here's a subroutine I wrote some time ago that waits until Y, N, R or Q is pressed:

sub get_YNRQ {
    while (1) {
        ReadMode 4;
        my $ans = uc(ReadKey(0));
        ReadMode 0;
        return $ans
            if $ans =~ m/[YNRQ]/;
    }
}
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update: added example code

Cheers,

JohnGG

I was told to look at 'Term::ReadKey' but the sample code in perldoc just does the same thing as 'while(<>)' would. does anyone have a reference web page that shows how to grab every key, or give me an example loop? thanks

It works for me:

               use Term::ReadKey;
               ReadMode 4; # Turn off controls keys
               while (not defined ($key = ReadKey(-1))) {
                       # No key yet
                       select undef,undef,undef,0.1; # sleep 0.1 secon
+d
               }
               print "Get key $key\n";
               ReadMode 0; # Reset tty mode before exiting
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run that:

$ perl test.pl
<press d>
Get key d
$
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update: the while() look does take up a tremendous amount of CPU time, though, so I added the select() call
"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

`perldoc -f getc` has information that you may find useful.

getc won't do what the OP wanted. From perldoc:

However, it cannot be used by itself to fetch single characters without waiting for the user to hit enter

I didn't recommend using getc. I recommended reading the getc documentation, because the majority of the getc documentation is devoted to solving the OP's problem.

Thanks,

-- Douglas Hunter