read variable and trigger event - python

Question

I have the following script which increases the counter variable every time a button is pressed. When counter reaches a certain number i.e. 10 lets say I want an event to trigger.

from time import sleep
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD)
button1=22
GPIO.setup(button1,GPIO.IN,pull_up_down=GPIO.PUD_UP)
counter = 0
while(1):
 if GPIO.input(button1)==0:
 counter = counter + 1
 sleep (0.5)
 print counter
 if counter == 10:
 print("target reached")
GPIO.cleanup()

I've been informed that a simple way to do this would be check the counter each time it changes and then use an if statement to trigger the event. Unfortunately I have a very elementary understanding of programming and have little idea how to do this.

Having researched if statements I came across this one that looked as if it might work -

if counter == 10:
 print("target reached")

It runs without error but doesn't do anything when expected.

My question therefore is how to proceed from here?

Thanks

• Eric G: I didn’t see this last edit to your code, but I would have expected it to work, for what that’s worth.
• Nick C: Thanks Eric. I actually used the code you answered with however I needed to indent the sleep line as the counting was proving a little unpredictable as it was. Seems to be working OK now.
• Eric G: Ahhh!! Got it. I didn't realize that sleep was probably to catch longer presses. Glad you got it!

Answer 1

while(1):
 if GPIO.input(button1)==0:
 counter = counter + 1
 print counter
 if counter == 10:
 print "I did it!"
 sleep(0.5) # to prevent multiple counts