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Support a Clear Screen command in IDLE #139641
Description
Bug report
Bug description:
As we all know, there is no way to clear input/output from the Idle Shell.
Unlike in a terminal, which has always had this facility.
I am currently working through Learning Python, 5ed, co 2013, where he complains about the same thing.
I would guess that Idle is a decade older than that.
I would suggest that, after 20 years , Idle should be at least as capable as a terminal, and that after 20 years the lack of a 'clear' command constitutes a bug, not a feature request.
Cheers
CPython versions tested on:
3.12
Operating systems tested on:
Linux
Activity
picnixz commentedon Oct 6, 2025
Even if it's decades later, we would still consider it a feature request first as per our feature policy. Sorry.
[-]Idle Clear Screen command does not exist[/-][+]Support a Clear Screen command in IDLE[/+]picnixz commentedon Oct 6, 2025
Actually, this is a duplicate of #50393.
terryjreedy commentedon Oct 6, 2025
@gryphonB-2 There has never been agreement on precisely what to do. Feel free to add a comment to the original issue. Prompted by this duplicate, I just added a comment on the separate solutions that I think would handle most use cases.
terryjreedy commentedon Oct 6, 2025
For IDLE (see PEP-434), bug versus feature usually makes no difference w/r/to backports. The main difference is that what to do for bugs is usually clear: fix the behavior, or possible the doc. The main problem is how to do so. Features, like this one, are much more likely to get hung up on the details of what to do.