How can I update the current line in a C# Windows

Question

When building a Windows Console App in C#, is it possible to write to the console without having to extend a current line or go to a new line? For example, if I want to show a percentage representing how close a process is to completion, I'd just like to update the value on the same line as the cursor, and not have to put each percentage on a new line.

Can this be done with a "standard" C# console app?

Answer 1

You can use Console.SetCursorPosition to set the position of the cursor and then write at the current position.

Here is an example showing a simple "spinner":

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var spin = new ConsoleSpinner();
    Console.Write("Working....");
    while (true) 
    {
        spin.Turn();
    }
}

public class ConsoleSpinner
{
    int counter;

    public void Turn()
    {
        counter++;        
        switch (counter % 4)
        {
            case 0: Console.Write("/"); counter = 0; break;
            case 1: Console.Write("-"); break;
            case 2: Console.Write("\\"); break;
            case 3: Console.Write("|"); break;
        }
        Thread.Sleep(100);
        Console.SetCursorPosition(Console.CursorLeft - 1, Console.CursorTop);
    }
}

Note that you will have to make sure to overwrite any existing output with new output or blanks.

Update: As it has been criticized that the example moves the cursor only back by one character, I will add this for clarification: Using SetCursorPosition you may set the cursor to any position in the console window.

Console.SetCursorPosition(0, Console.CursorTop);

will set the cursor to the beginning of the current line (or you can use Console.CursorLeft = 0 directly).

Answer 2

If you want update one line, but the information is too long to show on one line, it may need some new lines. I've encountered this problem, and below is one way to solve this.

public class DumpOutPutInforInSameLine
{

    //content show in how many lines
    int TotalLine = 0;

    //start cursor line
    int cursorTop = 0;

    // use to set  character number show in one line
    int OneLineCharNum = 75;

    public void DumpInformation(string content)
    {
        OutPutInSameLine(content);
        SetBackSpace();

    }
    static void backspace(int n)
    {
        for (var i = 0; i < n; ++i)
            Console.Write("\b \b");
    }

    public  void SetBackSpace()
    {

        if (TotalLine == 0)
        {
            backspace(OneLineCharNum);
        }
        else
        {
            TotalLine--;
            while (TotalLine >= 0)
            {
                backspace(OneLineCharNum);
                TotalLine--;
                if (TotalLine >= 0)
                {
                    Console.SetCursorPosition(OneLineCharNum, cursorTop + TotalLine);
                }
            }
        }

    }

    private void OutPutInSameLine(string content)
    {
        //Console.WriteLine(TotalNum);

        cursorTop = Console.CursorTop;

        TotalLine = content.Length / OneLineCharNum;

        if (content.Length % OneLineCharNum > 0)
        {
            TotalLine++;

        }

        if (TotalLine == 0)
        {
            Console.Write("{0}", content);

            return;

        }

        int i = 0;
        while (i < TotalLine)
        {
            int cNum = i * OneLineCharNum;
            if (i < TotalLine - 1)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("{0}", content.Substring(cNum, OneLineCharNum));
            }
            else
            {
                Console.Write("{0}", content.Substring(cNum, content.Length - cNum));
            }
            i++;

        }
    }

}
class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

        DumpOutPutInforInSameLine outPutInSameLine = new DumpOutPutInforInSameLine();

        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("");
        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb");


        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa");
        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb");

        //need several lines
        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa");
        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb");

        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa");
        outPutInSameLine.DumpInformation("bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb");

    }
}

Answer 3

i was looking for same solution in vb.net and i found this one and it's great.

however as @JohnOdom suggested a better way to handle the blanks space if previous one is larger than current one..

i make a function in vb.net and thought someone could get helped ..

here is my code:

Private Sub sPrintStatus(strTextToPrint As String, Optional boolIsNewLine As Boolean = False)
    REM intLastLength is declared as public variable on global scope like below
    REM intLastLength As Integer
    If boolIsNewLine = True Then
        intLastLength = 0
    End If
    If intLastLength > strTextToPrint.Length Then
        Console.Write(Convert.ToChar(13) & strTextToPrint.PadRight(strTextToPrint.Length + (intLastLength - strTextToPrint.Length), Convert.ToChar(" ")))
    Else
        Console.Write(Convert.ToChar(13) & strTextToPrint)
    End If
    intLastLength = strTextToPrint.Length
End Sub

Answer 4

Explicitly using a Carrage Return (\r) at the beginning of the line rather than (implicitly or explicitly) using a New Line (\n) at the end should get what you want. For example:

void demoPercentDone() {
    for(int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
        System.Console.Write( "\rProcessing {0}%...", i );
        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep( 1000 );
    }
    System.Console.WriteLine();    
}

Answer 5

I just had to play with the divo's ConsoleSpinner class. Mine is nowhere near as concise, but it just didn't sit well with me that users of that class have to write their own while(true) loop. I'm shooting for an experience more like this:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Console.Write("Working....");
    ConsoleSpinner spin = new ConsoleSpinner();
    spin.Start();

    // Do some work...

    spin.Stop(); 
}

And I realized it with the code below. Since I don't want my Start() method to block, I don't want the user to have to worry about writing a while(spinFlag) -like loop, and I want to allow multiple spinners at the same time I had to spawn a separate thread to handle the spinning. And that means the code has to be a lot more complicated.

Also, I haven't done that much multi-threading so it's possible (likely even) that I've left a subtle bug or three in there. But it seems to work pretty well so far:

public class ConsoleSpinner : IDisposable
{       
    public ConsoleSpinner()
    {
        CursorLeft = Console.CursorLeft;
        CursorTop = Console.CursorTop;  
    }

    public ConsoleSpinner(bool start)
        : this()
    {
        if (start) Start();
    }

    public void Start()
    {
        // prevent two conflicting Start() calls ot the same instance
        lock (instanceLocker) 
        {
            if (!running )
            {
                running = true;
                turner = new Thread(Turn);
                turner.Start();
            }
        }
    }

    public void StartHere()
    {
        SetPosition();
        Start();
    }

    public void Stop()
    {
        lock (instanceLocker)
        {
            if (!running) return;

            running = false;
            if (! turner.Join(250))
                turner.Abort();
        }
    }

    public void SetPosition()
    {
        SetPosition(Console.CursorLeft, Console.CursorTop);
    }

    public void SetPosition(int left, int top)
    {
        bool wasRunning;
        //prevent other start/stops during move
        lock (instanceLocker)
        {
            wasRunning = running;
            Stop();

            CursorLeft = left;
            CursorTop = top;

            if (wasRunning) Start();
        } 
    }

    public bool IsSpinning { get { return running;} }

    /* ---  PRIVATE --- */

    private int counter=-1;
    private Thread turner; 
    private bool running = false;
    private int rate = 100;
    private int CursorLeft;
    private int CursorTop;
    private Object instanceLocker = new Object();
    private static Object console = new Object();

    private void Turn()
    {
        while (running)
        {
            counter++;

            // prevent two instances from overlapping cursor position updates
            // weird things can still happen if the main ui thread moves the cursor during an update and context switch
            lock (console)
            {                  
                int OldLeft = Console.CursorLeft;
                int OldTop = Console.CursorTop;
                Console.SetCursorPosition(CursorLeft, CursorTop);

                switch (counter)
                {
                    case 0: Console.Write("/"); break;
                    case 1: Console.Write("-"); break;
                    case 2: Console.Write("\\"); break;
                    case 3: Console.Write("|"); counter = -1; break;
                }
                Console.SetCursorPosition(OldLeft, OldTop);
            }

            Thread.Sleep(rate);
        }
        lock (console)
        {   // clean up
            int OldLeft = Console.CursorLeft;
            int OldTop = Console.CursorTop;
            Console.SetCursorPosition(CursorLeft, CursorTop);
            Console.Write(' ');
            Console.SetCursorPosition(OldLeft, OldTop);
        }
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        Stop();
    }
}

Answer 6

So far we have three competing alternatives for how to do this:

Console.Write("\r{0}   ", value);                      // Option 1: carriage return
Console.Write("\b\b\b\b\b{0}", value);                 // Option 2: backspace
{                                                      // Option 3 in two parts:
    Console.SetCursorPosition(0, Console.CursorTop);   // - Move cursor
    Console.Write(value);                              // - Rewrite
}

I've always used Console.CursorLeft = 0, a variation on the third option, so I decided to do some tests. Here's the code I used:

public static void CursorTest()
{
    int testsize = 1000000;

    Console.WriteLine("Testing cursor position");
    Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
    sw.Start();
    for (int i = 0; i < testsize; i++)
    {
        Console.Write("\rCounting: {0}     ", i);
    }
    sw.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("\nTime using \\r: {0}", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);

    sw.Reset();
    sw.Start();
    int top = Console.CursorTop;
    for (int i = 0; i < testsize; i++)
    {
        Console.SetCursorPosition(0, top);        
        Console.Write("Counting: {0}     ", i);
    }
    sw.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("\nTime using CursorLeft: {0}", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);

    sw.Reset();
    sw.Start();
    Console.Write("Counting:          ");
    for (int i = 0; i < testsize; i++)
    {        
        Console.Write("\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b{0,8}", i);
    }

    sw.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("\nTime using \\b: {0}", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);
}

On my machine, I get the following results:

• Backspaces: 25.0 seconds
• Carriage Returns: 28.7 seconds
• SetCursorPosition: 49.7 seconds

Additionally, SetCursorPosition caused noticeable flicker that I didn't observe with either of the alternatives. So, the moral is to use backspaces or carriage returns when possible, and thanks for teaching me a faster way to do this, SO!

---

Update: In the comments, Joel suggests that SetCursorPosition is constant with respect to the distance moved while the other methods are linear. Further testing confirms that this is the case, however constant time and slow is still slow. In my tests, writing a long string of backspaces to the console is faster than SetCursorPosition until somewhere around 60 characters. So backspace is faster for replacing portions of the line shorter than 60 characters (or so), and it doesn't flicker, so I'm going to stand by my initial endorsement of \b over \r and SetCursorPosition.