I agree with Guido here. Although I really don't care about the capability myself, it feels like enough people do want a "clear screen" function... and from the discussion, in feels like there are a LOT of variations in how to do it across different operating systems, OS versions, terminals, shells, etc.
Having a common interface of `os.clear()` that did whatever funny thing a particular environment needed would save some folks trouble. Of course, I'm not certain how far it is possible to auto-detect the environment details within that function to "do the right thing" ... but probably there are clever hacks that get to 90% working. On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 1:03 PM Rob Cliffe via Python-ideas < python-ideas@python.org> wrote: > > > On 16/10/2020 13:55, Chris Angelico wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 11:08 PM Rob Cliffe <rob.cli...@btinternet.com> > wrote: > >> > >> > >> On 16/10/2020 11:59, Chris Angelico wrote: > >>> On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 8:21 PM Rob Cliffe via Python-ideas > >>> <python-ideas@python.org> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> On 13/10/2020 23:35, Guido van Rossum wrote: > >>>>> Can one of the educators on the list explain why this is such a > >>>>> commonly required feature? I literally never feel the need to clear > my > >>>>> screen -- but I've seen this requested quite a few times in various > >>>>> forms, often as a bug report "IDLE does not support CLS". I presume > >>>>> that this is a common thing in other programming environments for > >>>>> beginners -- even C++ (given that it was mentioned). Maybe it's a > >>>>> thing that command-line users on Windows are told to do frequently? > >>>>> What am I missing that students want to do frequently? Is it a > >>>>> holdover from the DOS age? > >>>>> > >>>> Sometimes I want a program that displays (more than 1 line of) > real-time > >>>> information in a Windows CMD box and refreshes it every few seconds > >>>> (e.g. progress displays, monitoring open > >>>> files/locks/connections/downloads etc.). It is natural to clear the > >>>> screen and display the updated information. > >>> Natural perhaps, but ugly. Much better to reposition the cursor and > >>> overwrite the previous text, with "clear to end of line" as required; > >>> that way, you avoid flicker. > >>> > >>> C > >> I do precisely that in many of my programs for e.g. single-line progress > >> displays. > >> But for multi-line output I don't know of any way to move the cursor > >> back up. > >> I work in Windows 10. > > Try \x1b[A to move up a line, should work. > > > > ChrisA > Thanks Chris, but no luck. It just echoes it, with the \x1b (Escape) > echoed as a character that looks like a question mark inside a box. > Earlier I did try googling for ways of moving the cursor, but almost all > I found was ways of moving the *mouse* cursor, and the rest was irrelevant. > Rob Cliffe > > _______________________________________________ > > Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org > > To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org > > https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ > > Message archived at > https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/5VZGBRIEW5UPQ6VCYQXC3UUNNHQXNFRB/ > > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ > _______________________________________________ > Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org > To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ > Message archived at > https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/5SBLJZAT3CH35ILXLSCLX5R62BQX3FQE/ > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ > -- The dead increasingly dominate and strangle both the living and the not-yet born. Vampiric capital and undead corporate persons abuse the lives and control the thoughts of homo faber. Ideas, once born, become abortifacients against new conceptions.
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