Question

I remember seeing completed programs where you could backspace and delete text prompts. Usually, all text that is cout’ed is static and cannot be erased from the screen, but I want to be able to erase text that was output by the program (such as, for example, the program gives me a default name that I can accept, or delete and enter my own). I would imagine I could fake keyboard input to put up erasable text on the console, but is there a cleaner way to do it? Thanks.

Answer 1

If I understand you, you probably want something like GNU Readline

“The GNU Readline library provides a
set of functions for use by
applications that allow users to edit
command lines as they are typed in.
Both Emacs and vi editing modes are
available. The Readline library
includes additional functions to
maintain a list of previously-entered
command lines, to recall and perhaps
reedit those lines, and perform
csh-like history expansion on previous
commands.”