An elegant solution for reading a individual keypresses under Python.

import termios, sys, os

def read_keys():
    fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
    old = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
    new = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
    new[3] = new[3] & ~termios.ICANON & ~termios.ECHO
    new[6][termios.VMIN] = 1
    new[6][termios.VTIME] = 0
    termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSANOW, new)
    try:
        while 1:
            yield os.read(fd, 1)
    finally:
        termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSAFLUSH, old)

Example:

>>> for key in read_keys():
...   print("KEY: %s" % (key))
... 
KEY: g
KEY: i
KEY: f
KEY: d
KEY: s
KEY: w
KEY: e

Inspired by this.