How to: "Clear screen" in C program

Okay I'm trying to understand how to "refresh" or "clear" the screen in a C program.

I'm not sure if I'm describing what I'm trying to do well, so here's what I mean:

So far all I know how to do is outprint more under what I've outprint. For example:

Code:

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printf("Print 1 statement\n");
printf("Print 2 statement\n");
printf("Print 3 statement\n");


And that would do the following in the comand promt when I run:

Print 1 statement
Print 2 statement
Print 3 statement

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Okay, well, as one could see all the program is doing is outprinting more program after previous program. What I'm looking to do is:

Code:

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And the command promt do this:

Print 1 statement

*erases command promt back to "empty"*

Print 2 statement

*erases command prompt back to "empty"*

Print 3 statement

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Where each print statement is said, then erased, then the next is said in the same position of the previous. Is there a way to do this?

My "knowledge" of C is limited up to chapter 8 of my book (arrays) so I don't have a deep understanding of programming relative to many...otherwise I would probably have a solution for this myself.

Please help if you can. Thanks.
Matt

I don't know of a platform independent way of doing it, but in windows one possibility is to use the system command:

Code:

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system("cls");

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Otherwise you could use the windows API to get the position of the cursor and while it is not at (0,0), continue to type '\b' characters, but that is slightly more indepth.

You can always spit out a bunch of '\n' characters to scroll everything off the top of the console window.

Or even just read the FAQ.