Clearing the Screen
There are two ways to clear the screen in a console application. The first method is to use the C run-time system function as follows:
#include <stdlib.h>
void main()
{
system("cls");
}
The system function invokes the cls command provided by the command interpreter to clear the screen.
The second method is to write a function to programmatically clear the screen using the FillConsoleOutputCharacter and FillConsoleOutputAttribute functions. The following sample code demonstrates this technique.
void cls( HANDLE hConsole )
{
COORD coordScreen = { 0, 0 }; // home for the cursor
DWORD cCharsWritten;
CONSOLE_SCREEN_BUFFER_INFO csbi;
DWORD dwConSize;
// Get the number of character cells in the current buffer.
if( !GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo( hConsole, &csbi ))
return;
dwConSize = csbi.dwSize.X * csbi.dwSize.Y;
// Fill the entire screen with blanks.
if( !FillConsoleOutputCharacter( hConsole, (TCHAR) ' ',
dwConSize, coordScreen, &cCharsWritten ))
return;
// Get the current text attribute.
if( !GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo( hConsole, &csbi ))
return;
// Set the buffer's attributes accordingly.
if( !FillConsoleOutputAttribute( hConsole, csbi.wAttributes,
dwConSize, coordScreen, &cCharsWritten ))
return;
// Put the cursor at its home coordinates.
SetConsoleCursorPosition( hConsole, coordScreen );
}
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