Software Developer at CodeHS
To clear the console, we can use ANSI escape sequences, a special group of characters programs can use to communicate with the console.
ANSI escape sequences can be used to change the color of text and move the cursor, but for clearing the console we’re after one particular code, [2J. We’ll need to preface this code with the escape code, which is x1b in hexadecimal, 033 in octal, or u001b in unicode (all equivalent to eachother).
Different languages handle these codes differently, so let’s take a look at each.
For this program, we use two separate sequences, [H and [2J. Both are preceded with \033, the escape sequence in octal. The first moves the cursors to the top left corner, then clears the console. If you remove the \033[H, you’ll see that the second print statement will start lower on the screen.
You can replace the \033 with \u001b, and you should see the same result.
This should look familiar, we see the same two codes: [H and [2J. This time the escape code is printed in hexadecimal (\x1b), but \033 will work just as well.
At this point there should be no surprises—we use the escape code (\x1bc, \033, or \u001b) followed by [H then [2J.
Now, let’s look at an alternative in Python.
Most terminals have a clear or cls command, depending on whether you’re on Windows or a Unix machine. These implementations use the ANSI escape sequences we’ve just learned, but we can also use them directly from our programs.
Here’s an example in Python:
