title: Python cancel raw_input/input via writing to stdin?
body: <p>For starters, I'm on python 2.7.5 and Windows x64, my app is targeted at those parameters.</p>
  
  <p>I'm in need of a way to cancel a raw_input after a certain amount of time has passed.  Currently I have my main thread starting two child threads, one is the timer (threading.Timer) and the other fires the raw_input.  These both return a value to a Queue.queue that the main thread monitors.  It then acts on what is sent to the queue.</p>
  
  <pre><code># snip...
  q = Queue.queue()
  # spawn user thread
  user = threading.Thread(target=user_input, args=[q])
  # spawn timer thread (20 minutes)
  timer = threading.Timer(1200, q.put, ['y'])
  # wait until we get a response from either
  while q.empty():
      time.sleep(1)
  timer.cancel()
  
  # stop the user input thread here if it's still going
  
  # process the queue value
  i = q.get()
  if i in 'yY':
      # do yes stuff here
  elif i in 'nN':
      # do no stuff here
  
  # ...snip
  
  def user_input(q):
      i = raw_input(
          "Unable to connect in last {} tries, "
          "do you wish to continue trying to "
          "reconnect? (y/n)".format(connect_retries))
      q.put(i)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The research that I've done so far seems to say that it's not possible to "correctly" cancel a thread.  I feel that processes are too heavy for the task, though I'm not opposed to using them if that's what really needs to be done.  Instead, my thought is that if the timer finishes with no user input, I can write a value to stdin and close that thread gracefully.</p>
  
  <p>So, how do I write to stdin from the main thread so that the child thread accepts the input and closes gracefully?
  Thanks!</p>