How to wait for keystrokes

Introduction:

Using events to wait for keystrokes can be useful in many situations, such as waiting for a user to type before display new text. In the next few paragraphs I will demonstrate how to make a code like this and provide a few examples

Setting up the code:
Here we will start with a blank program:

In order to start, we need to make an event:

 local event, keystroke = os.pullEvent("char")

Next we will setup a specific keystroke requirement:

 if keystroke == "q" then
--code here
else
--code here
end

Now lets fill this with code to show some of its uses.

print("Press Q to continue")
local event, keystroke = os.pullEvent("char")
if keystroke == "q" then
print("You pressed the q key")
else
print("You pressed the wrong key")
term.clear()
end

You can also have a code to clear the screen after hitting a key:

print("Press Q to erase data")
local event, keystroke = os.pullEvent("char")
if keystroke == "q" then
term.clear()
print("Data Erased")
os.shutdown()
else
print("Data Persists")
end

How this code works:

In this code we call an event waiting for a key to be pressed. The code will wait for a key press then execute the next line of code. In these examples I used a code requiring you to press a certain key, but you can remove this to simply use a key to perform the next snippet of code.

Thanks,


BlankTitle

P.S. If you find any errors in this code please notify me!

good tutorial, next you need os.pullEvent("key") to catch enter and such

Yeah, like PixelToast said, it's generally bad practice to use the char event alone to detect keypresses. The char event is good for making a typeable field, though, like in the read() function.

Thanks you guys for the tips!