[kevin_06s]

I Googled for a way to clear the console screen. The general answer was that it was not possible to do so platform independently, but from what I see it is possible to make it platform independent.

I think one could first detect the OS the the user is running, then call the native console clearing function for each OS. I have the OS detection, but I don't know how to call the native console clearing functions, please help.

public class Clear{
	public static void main(String[] args){
		if(isWindows()){
			//Windows
		}else if(isMac()){
			//Mac
		}else if(isLinux()){
			//Linux
		}else{
			System.out.println("Your OS is not support!!");
		}
	}
 
	public static boolean isWindows(){
 
		String os = System.getProperty("os.name").toLowerCase();
	    return (os.indexOf("win") >= 0); 
	}
 
	public static boolean isMac(){
 
		String os = System.getProperty("os.name").toLowerCase();
	    return (os.indexOf("mac") >= 0); 
	}
 
	public static boolean isUnix(){
 
		String os = System.getProperty("os.name").toLowerCase();
	    return (os.indexOf("linux") >=0);
	}
}

This post has been edited by macosxnerd101: 14 September 2010 - 06:51 PM
Reason for edit:: Added code tags. Please use them in the future.

[H3R3T1C]

For win the clear command is cls

[macosxnerd101]

You can't clear the console screen guaranteed on all major platforms. I remember pbl, our resident Java authority, tried to write a wrapper API for the console to do just this, and didn't finish it, as best I recall b/c it was so difficult. Honestly, if you are still concerned with console applications, which aren't used in the real world, then this isn't a project you want to tackle. And if you are beyond console applications, then no need to really worry about them.

Perhaps, as H3R3T1C said, you can use some command line commands for certain OS's. But this is no guarantee you will be able to accomplish this task and keep your code platform independent.

[kevin_06s]

macosxnerd101, on 14 September 2010 - 05:56 PM, said:

You can't clear the console screen guaranteed on all major platforms. I remember pbl, our resident Java authority, tried to write a wrapper API for the console to do just this, and didn't finish it, as best I recall b/c it was so difficult. Honestly, if you are still concerned with console applications, which aren't used in the real world, then this isn't a project you want to tackle. And if you are beyond console applications, then no need to really worry about them.

Perhaps, as H3R3T1C said, you can use some command line commands for certain OS's. But this is no guarantee you will be able to accomplish this task and keep your code platform independent.

So I suppose I should just give up and stick with the newline hack?

[KYA]

Read me.

[macosxnerd101]

Yes. If you are still on console apps, then you will want to stay clear of native code. The JNI isn't the easiest to work with.

[KYA]

Plus, even for regular apps, going down to the native level defeats the purpose of one of Java's strengths in the first place.

[Dogstopper]

What you have typically is the hack that I use for things like clearing the screen, shutting down, and OS dependent things like that. The one thing you have to know is for each of the three big OS's what the command line options are, and then have a backup plan if none work (like if it's some random OS). Here's how I do it.

 
if (windows) 
    Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cls");
else if (linux)
    Runtime.getRuntime().exec("clear");
else if (mac)
    Runtime.getRuntime().exec("clear");

// If all else fails, print 100 blank lines
else {
    for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
        System.out.println();
    }
}

[kevin_06s]

Dogstopper, on 14 September 2010 - 06:30 PM, said:

What you have typically is the hack that I use for things like clearing the screen, shutting down, and OS dependent things like that. The one thing you have to know is for each of the three big OS's what the command line options are, and then have a backup plan if none work (like if it's some random OS). Here's how I do it.

 
if (windows) 
    Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cls");
else if (linux)
    Runtime.getRuntime().exec("clear");
else if (mac)
    Runtime.getRuntime().exec("clear");

// If all else fails, print 100 blank lines
else {
    for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
        System.out.println();
    }
}

Dogstopper++

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks so much.

[Dogstopper]

Glad I could help. good luck.

[cfoley]

Unfortunately they broke that method in a recent java release. When you call exec (at least on windows) you get a new process which does not share the same console. I think cls is also a console command and not an application so you also can't launch cls from exec either.