Java remove input text from console without clearing console

Question

So basically I have input reader that looks like this:

BufferedReader stdIn = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
while (true) {
    String userInput = stdIn.readLine();
    if (userInput != null) {
        String message = username + ":" + userInput;
    }
}

When I enter some text in terminal for input let's say:

this is a test

And I hit ENTER it stays there. Is there any way for it to get automatically removed from console WITHOUT clearing the whole console ?

print `\r` followed by a lot of spaces or maybe an ANSI escape sequence? — itdoesntwork, Dec 03 '14 at 23:49

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

1

If you want to remove the entire line print '\r' (carriage return)

or if you want to remove part of the output just use '\b' (back space) like this

edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

Community

1
1

answered Dec 03 '14 at 23:53

Kavin Eswaramoorthy

1,595
11
19

When I read user input simply print `System.out.println("\r");` ? Because that doesn't work. Can you give me an example how to use it ? – Marijus Dec 03 '14 at 23:58
@Marijus Are you using any IDE. Try directly from console – Kavin Eswaramoorthy Dec 04 '14 at 00:01
I'm doing this ubuntu terminal :\ – Marijus Dec 04 '14 at 00:03

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 04 '14 at 00:05

No you cannot as you currently treat the console as a line printer. You should however treat it as a terminal that accepts ANSI escape codes. One library that lets you treat the console this way is Lanterna but there are many others. Note that the console needs to recognize the escape codes for this to work (e.g. the normal Eclipse console does not).

Java remove input text from console without clearing console

2 Answers2