How to use Ruby to detect whether on Windows Platform, the SHIFT or ALT key is being pressed?

Question

I wrote a script using Ruby to click on the screen automatically on Windows's apps. All is fine except there are situations where the program will keep on clicking and I have no opportunity to click on the Shell and click CTRL-C.

So some "sleep" statement need to be placed somewhere in the loop, such as "sleep 3", so that there are 3 seconds to allow the user to switch to the Shell and press CTRL-C.

But is there a way to detect whether the SHIFT or ALT (or BOTH) is pressed on the Windows Platform while the Ruby program is running, so that when that is detected, then do a "sleep 10", so that the automatic clicking is stopped, and then there are 10 seconds to stop the Ruby program?

Answer 1

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1811206/on-win32-how-to-detect-whether-a-left-shift-or-right-alt-is-pressed-using-perl has some clues...

ruby ffi might help, too