'Waiting' animation in command prompt (Python)

Question

I have a Python script which takes a long time to run. I\'d quite like to have the command line output to have a little \'waiting\' animation, much like the swirly circle we

Answer 1

Python's built-in curses package contains utilities for controlling what is printed to a terminal screen.

Answer 2

A loading bar useful for if you're installing something.

animation = [
"[        ]",
"[=       ]",
"[===     ]",
"[====    ]",
"[=====   ]",
"[======  ]",
"[======= ]",
"[========]",
"[ =======]",
"[  ======]",
"[   =====]",
"[    ====]",
"[     ===]",
"[      ==]",
"[       =]",
"[        ]",
"[        ]"
]

notcomplete = True

i = 0

while notcomplete:
    print(animation[i % len(animation)], end='\r')
    time.sleep(.1)
    i += 1

if you want to make it last a couple seconds do

if i == 17*10:
    break

after the

i += 1

Answer 3

Just another pretty variant

import time

bar = [
    " [=     ]",
    " [ =    ]",
    " [  =   ]",
    " [   =  ]",
    " [    = ]",
    " [     =]",
    " [    = ]",
    " [   =  ]",
    " [  =   ]",
    " [ =    ]",
]
i = 0

while True:
    print(bar[i % len(bar)], end="\r")
    time.sleep(.2)
    i += 1

Answer 4

Use \r and print-without-newline (that is, suffix with a comma):

animation = "|/-\\"
idx = 0
while thing_not_complete():
    print(animation[idx % len(animation)], end="\r")
    idx += 1
    time.sleep(0.1)

For Python 2, use this print syntax:

print animation[idx % len(animation)] + "\r",