Rewinding std::cout to go back to the beginning of a line

c++ macos terminal stdout output-formatting
fbrereto picture fbrereto · Jun 17, 2010 · Viewed 32.2k times · Source

I'm writing a command-line tool for Mac OS X that processes a bunch of files. I would like to show the user the current file being processed, but do not want a bazillion files polluting the terminal window.

Instead I would like to use a single line to output the file path, then reuse that line for the next file. Is there a character (or some other code) to output to std::cout to accomplish this?

Also, if I wanted to re-target this tool for Windows, would the solution be the same for both platforms?

Answer

Logan Capaldo picture Logan Capaldo · Jun 17, 2010

"\r" should work for both windows and Mac OS X.

Something like:

std::cout << "will not see this\rwill see this" << std::flush;
std::cout << std::endl; // all done

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