Question

I was writing a command line program which will have a status bar, much like wget.

The main problem I’m facing is: how do I delete what I’ve already sent into stdout/stderr?

I had on idea: use the backspace char ‘\b’ and erase the output I’ve sent. Is that the best way? Is it the only way? Is there a better way?

PS: I don’t want to use anything like ncurses. Plain old C please.

Thanks

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EDIT:

Can I also go up and/or down? Example: I have 10 lines of output, I want to change the 3rd line from Doing ABC to ABC: Done. How can I do that?

Also, can anyone post more details about what VT102 characters are? What are its capabilities? Please post good links on this if you have any.

Thanks

Answer 1

Use ‘\r’ to return to the beginning of the line and possibly rewrite the whole line.

Look for VT102 control sequences – these are character sequences ESC … to control your terminal.