Clearing the Screen

Clearing the screen on a console application appears to be related to the operating system you are using or to your compiler.

Borland C++ Builder

There are two basic ways you can clear the screen in Borland C++ Builder. The simplest technique consists of calling the system() function with the string argument "cls". Here is an example:

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <iostream.h>
#pragma hdrstop
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
#pragma argsused
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    char FirstName[12], LastName[12];
    
    cout << "Enter First Name: "; cin >> FirstName;
    cout << "Enter Last Name:  "; cin >> LastName;
    
    system("cls");
    
    cout << "Full Name: " << FirstName << " " << LastName;
    
    cout << "\n\nPress any key to continue...";
    getchar();
    return 0;
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another technique, highly known to Borland C++ Builder console programmers consists of calling the clrscr() function. The clrscr() function is part of the conio library. The clrscr() function is neither part of the C++ Standard nor part of the MS Windows operating system. Here is an example of using it:

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <iostream.h>
#include <conio.h>
#pragma hdrstop
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
#pragma argsused
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    char FirstName[12], LastName[12];
    
    cout << "Enter First Name: "; cin >> FirstName;
    cout << "Enter Last Name:  "; cin >> LastName;
    
    clrscr();
    
    cout << "Full Name: " << FirstName << " " << LastName;

    cout << "\n\nPress any key to continue...";
    getchar();
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

MS Visual C++

To clear the screen in MSVC, first, instead of #include <iostream.h>, you must use

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

Then, call the system() function with the string argument of "cls" where you want to clear the screen:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    char FirstName[12], LastName[12];
    
    cout << "Enter First Name: "; cin >> FirstName;
    cout << "Enter Last Name:  "; cin >> LastName;
    
    system("cls");
    
    cout << "Full Name: " << FirstName << " " << LastName << "\n\n";
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

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