Erase the current printed console line

Question

How can I erase the current printed console line in C? I am working on a Linux system. For example -

printf("hello");
printf("bye");

I want to print bye on the same line in place of hello.

Answer 1

i iterates through char array words. j keeps track of word length. "\b \b" erases word while backing over line.

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int i = 0, j = 0;

    char words[] = "Hello Bye";

    while(words[i]!='\0')
    {
        if(words[i] != ' ') {
            printf("%c", words[i]);
        fflush(stdout);
        }
        else {
            //system("ping -n 1 127.0.0.1>NUL");  //For Microsoft OS
            system("sleep 0.25");
            while(j-->0) {
                printf("\b \b");
            }
        }

        i++;
        j++;
    }

printf("\n");                   
return 0;
}

Answer 2

Just found this old thread, looking for some kind of escape sequence to blank the actual line.

It's quite funny no one came to the idea (or I have missed it) that printf returns the number of characters written. So just print '\r' + as many blank characters as printf returned and you will exactly blank the previuosly written text.

int BlankBytes(int Bytes)
{
                char strBlankStr[16];

                sprintf(strBlankStr, "\r%%%is\r", Bytes);
                printf(strBlankStr,"");

                return 0;
}

int main(void)
{
                int iBytesWritten;
                double lfSomeDouble = 150.0;

                iBytesWritten = printf("test text %lf", lfSomeDouble);

                BlankBytes(iBytesWritten);

                return 0;
}

As I cant use VT100, it seems I have to stick with that solution

Answer 3

You can use VT100 escape codes. Most terminals, including xterm, are VT100 aware. For erasing a line, this is ^[[2K. In C this gives:

printf("%c[2K", 27);