Clear terminal in Python

Question

Does any standard "comes with batteries" method exist to clear the terminal screen from a Python script, or do I have to go curses (the libraries, not the words)?

Answer 1

This will be work in Both version Python2 OR Python3

print (u"{}[2J{}[;H".format(chr(27), chr(27)))

Answer 2

python -c "from os import system; system('clear')"

Answer 3

A simple and cross-platform solution would be to use either the cls command on Windows, or clear on Unix systems. Used with os.system, this makes a nice one-liner:

import os
os.system('cls' if os.name == 'nt' else 'clear')

Answer 4

You could tear through the terminfo database, but the functions for doing so are in curses anyway.

Answer 5

For Windows, on the interpreter command line only (not the GUI)! Simply type: (Remember to use proper indentation with python):

import os
def clear():
    os.system('cls')

Every time you type clear() on the shell (command line), it will clear the screen on your shell. If you exit the shell, then you must redo the above to do it again as you open a new Python (command line) shell.

Note: Does not matter what version of Python you are using, explicitly (2.5, 2.7, 3.3 & 3.4).

Answer 6

Came across this some time ago

def clearscreen(numlines=100):
  """Clear the console.
numlines is an optional argument used only as a fall-back.
"""
# Thanks to Steven D'Aprano, http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums

  if os.name == "posix":
    # Unix/Linux/MacOS/BSD/etc
    os.system('clear')
  elif os.name in ("nt", "dos", "ce"):
    # DOS/Windows
    os.system('CLS')
  else:
    # Fallback for other operating systems.
    print('\n' * numlines)

Then just use clearscreen()