Removing input() text from console Python3

Question

I want to clear the line of text created after the input() function. I've tried \033[a, \r, end='' but either I'm doing it wrong or it doesn't work. Is there a better way:

Code is:

rawguess = input('Enter a 5 letter word: ')
print('words go here')

I've tried:

rawguess = input('\033[A' + 'Enter a 5 letter word: ' + '\033[A')
print('words go here')

rawguess = input('Enter a 5 letter word: ')
print('\rwords go here')

rawguess = input('Enter a 5 letter word: ')
print('\r', end='')
print('words go here')

And other variations of these three but nothing's worked so far.

Hello @spuddo, and welcome to StackOverflow! I think, because input prints a newline, you need to move the cursor up 1 line after input, instead of in the input prompt text. — David
– David, Commented Aug 13, 2022 at 8:14
Does this (stackoverflow.com/questions/517970/…) or this (stackoverflow.com/questions/44565704/…) answer your question? It clears everything in the console though. — Jobo Fernandez
– Jobo Fernandez, Commented Aug 13, 2022 at 8:16
@JoboFernandez Tried a bunch of those, they either cleared the whole console or didn't do anything :/ Thanks for the reply though — spuddo
– spuddo, Commented Aug 13, 2022 at 8:30

David · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-13 09:00:45Z

I didn't know this before, but apparently Windows now supports Console Virtual Terminal Sequences, which include using ESC [ <n> A to move the cursor up (like on *nix). So we can call the Win32 API with ctypes.windll and enable Virtual Terminal Sequences, which will allow us to use '\x1b[1A'.

import sys

# Only do this on Windows, so that *nix users
# can also run the program without errors
if sys.platform.startswith('win'):
    import ctypes
    from ctypes.wintypes import *

    STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11
    ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING = 4

    kernel32 = ctypes.windll.kernel32

    h = kernel32.GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
    m = DWORD()
    kernel32.GetConsoleMode(h, ctypes.pointer(m))
    m.value |= ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING
    kernel32.SetConsoleMode(h, m)

rawguess = input('Enter a 5 letter word: ')
print('\x1b[1A' + 'words go here')

Bharel · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-13 09:05:26Z

1

Well I just found a piece of dark magic allowing you to enable terminal controls in Python:

import subprocess
subprocess.run("", shell=True)
input('Enter a 5 letter word: ')
print('\x1b[1A' + 'words go here       ')

answered Aug 13, 2022 at 9:05

Bharel

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1 Comment

David Over a year ago

Thanks for the trick! However, I would not rely on this feature because AFAIK it's not documented anywhere... The Win32 API is documented and should work with all implementations of Python.

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