cygwin clearscreen from bash

Question

I want to clearscreen from bash in a cygwin terminal. I have tried

cmd /c cls
echo -e "^V^L"
echo -e "\014"

None of these work - they all give a "linefeed". Pressing CTRL+L does work - but I want to call it from a Bash script.

Any ideas?

@Mat: This has the same effect as Ctrl+L, it only pushes the text up off the screen but doesn't clear it — HXCaine, Mar 24 '13 at 13:08
The Control-L character (which is formfeed, not linefeed) typically doesn't do anything when printed on vt100-like terminal emulators. — Keith Thompson, Sep 25 '13 at 22:29
possible duplicate of [Clear the Ubuntu bash screen for real](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5367068/clear-the-ubuntu-bash-screen-for-real) — Sandeep Datta, Feb 13 '15 at 11:56

score 171 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 24 '13 at 19:37

171

Or you could try ctrl-L :)

That should work in most emulated terminals as well.

answered Mar 24 '13 at 19:37

gNU.be

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From the question: "Pressing CTRL+L does work - but I want to call it from a Bash script." – Keith Thompson Sep 25 '13 at 22:32
7

`CTRL+L` seems to only scroll away the old content, not remove it like `ALT+F` – Ruan Mendes Jun 03 '14 at 19:06
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Wow this answer sure is paying the bills! Sheesh, I wonder what "sudo !!" would get me. – gNU.be Sep 24 '14 at 21:26

Abudayah · Answer 2 · 2014-04-11T14:06:11.200

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There is two ways:

Using shortcuts

Alt+F8 to clear screen and Ctrl-L to skip page

Using Clear alias

Go to: cygwin\home\USER\.bashrc
Open .bashrc file and put this alias alias clear='printf "\033c"'.
restart your cygwin terminal.
to clear your screen use clear command.

edited Apr 11 '14 at 14:06

answered Jul 31 '13 at 13:07

Abudayah

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From the question: "Pressing CTRL+L does work - but I want to call it from a Bash script." – Keith Thompson Sep 25 '13 at 22:42

score 35 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 25 '13 at 22:15

35

If it's contained in your cygwin install (run Cygwin's setup and make sure you have the package called "ncurses"), try

tput clear

edited Sep 25 '13 at 22:15

Cody S

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answered Mar 24 '13 at 12:10

mikyra

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The real answer here is: install ncurses, then the "normal" clear command does work as Keith said. – MickLH Nov 26 '13 at 09:05

score 26 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 10 '13 at 15:23

26

I have this in my ~/.bashrc:

alias clear='printf "\033c"'

likewise, printf "\033c" clears the screen from within a bash script.

answered Dec 10 '13 at 15:23

vertikalist

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Clever solution. Just added it to my .bashrc – mbokil Feb 10 '14 at 16:39

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 22 '16 at 01:22

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Alt+F8 to clear screen and Ctrl-L to skip page

answered Jan 22 '16 at 01:22

Ravi Macha

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 14 '15 at 20:14

Using shortcuts (for mitty console users)

Alt+F8 to clear screen and Ctrl-L to skip page

Using sh bash adding a command

If you use console2 or same consoles, you can add this sh code as without extension this location : ..\cygwin64\bin\

cls and /or clear (without extension)

#!/bin/sh
printf "\033c"

Then you can use cls and|or clear in cygwin command.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 18 '18 at 12:31

I was trying to do something similar and upon researching I found the above answers, I tried to follow some of the above solutions, I added the line to .bashrc, but it did not accept the function, I tweaked around and found out another solution...it basically executes the ' printf "\33c" but instead of tweaking the .bash.rc file, you simply go to the directory - /cygwin/bin , Write the following command :- printf "\033c" And save it with the filename "cls" , in the bin directory, ensure that there is NO EXTENSION to the file, thus it will have the type "file" ..save it,open the shell and the command will run...

I found this method by playing around with msys and cygwin, I have both on my windows PC and turns out msys supports the "cls" command, I found a file with the same name in it's bin directory and copied it to the cygwin's bin folder and edited the file with the printf function and this worked like a charm...hope this helps.

cygwin clearscreen from bash

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