Python wait x secs for a key and continue execution if not pressed

If you're on Unix/Linux then the select module will help you.

import sys
from select import select

print "Press any key to configure or wait 5 seconds..."
timeout = 5
rlist, wlist, xlist = select([sys.stdin], [], [], timeout)

if rlist:
    print "Config selected..."
else:
    print "Timed out..."

If you're on Windows, then look into the msvcrt module. (Note this doesn't work in IDLE, but will in cmd prompt)

import sys, time, msvcrt

timeout = 5
startTime = time.time()
inp = None

print "Press any key to configure or wait 5 seconds... "
while True:
    if msvcrt.kbhit():
        inp = msvcrt.getch()
        break
    elif time.time() - startTime > timeout:
        break

if inp:
    print "Config selected..."
else:
    print "Timed out..."

Edit Changed the code samples so you could tell whether there was a timeout or a keypress...

Python doesn't have any standard way to catch this, it gets keyboard input only through input() and raw_input().

If you really want this you could use Tkinter or pygame to catch the keystrokes as "events". There are also some platform-specific solutions like pyHook. But if it's not absolutely vital to your program, I suggest you make it work another way.