Detect in python which keys are pressed

The easiest way to do something like this, if you're not too fussy, is to bring in a GUI toolkit such as pygame or wxPython. For example, run the wxPython Demo, then go to the demo for KeyEvents.

(from the pynput documentation)

from pynput import keyboard

def on_press(key):
    try:
        print('alphanumeric key {0} pressed'.format(
            key.char))
    except AttributeError:
        print('special key {0} pressed'.format(
            key))

def on_release(key):
    print('{0} released'.format(
        key))
    if key == keyboard.Key.esc:
        # Stop listener
        return False

# Collect events until released
with keyboard.Listener(
        on_press=on_press,
        on_release=on_release) as listener:
    listener.join()

This code from the pynput documentation seems to work. I'm not sure how to get it as a variable but it will print out keys in the terminal.