CLS (clear) a single line?

Question

Is there any way to CLS a single line of output? I don\'t believe there are any switches for CLS, so maybe a better question would be:

Answer 1

An alternative quick&dirty method of moving the cursor via TIMEOUT:

@echo off
<nul set/p"=5 seconds till i close..."
timeout /t 5 /nobreak >con
echo(i'm closing now...[REPLACE this with lots of spaces]
exit /b

Answer 2

If you only need to move the cursor in one line (like your sample),
it's possible with a carriage return character.

@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f %%a in ('copy /Z "%~f0" nul') do set "CR=%%a"
for /L %%n in (5 -1 1) do (
  <nul set /P "=This window will close in %%n seconds!CR!"
  ping -n 2 localhost > nul
)

Answer 3

Try ANSI sequences: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ansi.php

Burrowing down the links, http://batch.xoo.it/t2238-BG-exe-Utility-for-Batch-Games.htm looks the most promising.

This page sounds like it has useful discussion on controlling/setting console sizes (and other display and buffer size settings). http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/change-buffer-size-console-window-can-runas-inherit-console-props-t1468842.html

Answer 4

Unfortunately, there is no native command or utility that repositions your cursor in a Windows command line console.

You will need a 3rd party utility.

Aacini posted a free CursorPos.exe utility on DOSTips. The CurorPos.exe "source" is given as Hex digits. To use the source you will need the HexToBin.bat "compiler".

Browse both threads and you will find a number of utilities you may find useful.