How to Clear the Screen in Python

Clear terminal in Python

What about escape sequences?

print(chr(27) + "[2J")

How do I clear the screen in Python 3?

It prints the menu again because you call main() again instead of just stopping there. :-)

elif choice == "2":
      os.system("cls")
      main() # <--- this is the line that causes issues

Now for the clearing itself, os.system("cls") works on Windows and os.system("clear") works on Linux / OS X as answered here.

Also, your program currently tells the user if their choice is not supported but does not offer a second chance. You could have something like this:

def main():

  ...

  while True:
      choice = input("Please enter option 1 or 2")
      if choice not in ("1", "2"):
          print("that is not a valid option")
      else:
          break

  if choice == "1":
      ...

  elif choice == "2":
      ...

main()

Clear screen in shell

For macOS/OS X, you can use the subprocess module and call 'cls' from the shell:

import subprocess as sp
sp.call('cls', shell=True)

To prevent '0' from showing on top of the window, replace the 2nd line with:

tmp = sp.call('cls', shell=True)

For Linux, you must replace cls command with clear

tmp = sp.call('clear', shell=True)

How to clear the interpreter console?

As you mentioned, you can do a system call:

For Windows:

>>> import os
>>> clear = lambda: os.system('cls')
>>> clear()

For Linux it would be:

>>> import os
>>> clear = lambda: os.system('clear')
>>> clear()

Clearing the screen of IDLE interactive mode

cls and clear are commands which will clear a terminal (ie a DOS prompt, or terminal window). If you are using the shell within IDLE, which won't be affected by such things, a workaround might be to print a lot of empty lines with print("\n" * 100). See also this answer for more information.

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