CODEWITHSUNDEEP
r
Berk U.
Berk U.

Reputation: 7198

Function to clear the console in R and RStudio

I am wondering if there is a function to clear the console in R and, in particular, RStudio I am looking for a function that I can type into the console, and not a keyboard shortcut.

Someone has already provided such a function in this StackExchange post from 2010. Unfortunately, this depends on the RCom package and will not run on Mac OS X.

Upvotes: 372

Views: 598354

Answers (14)

Dan Chaltiel
Dan Chaltiel

Reputation: 8523

I know this question is very old, but I found myself visiting it many times looking for a totally different answer:

n = 20
for (i in 0:n) {
  cat(100*i/n, "% \r")
  flush.console()
  Sys.sleep(0.01) #do something slow
}

flush.console() will kind of "clear the console in r and studio", maybe not in OP's terms but still.

This code will act like a progress bar in the console. For each iteration, the percentage is incremented and then erased on the next iteration.

Note that this won't work without \r or with an \n, for some reason.

Upvotes: 1

Paul
Paul

Reputation: 9107

Another option for RStudio is rstudioapi::sendToConsole("\014"). This will work even if output is diverted.

sink("out.txt")

cat("\014") # Console not cleared

rstudioapi::sendToConsole("\014") # Console cleared

sink()

Upvotes: 1

SATYAJIT MAITRA
SATYAJIT MAITRA

Reputation: 73

cat("\014") . This will work. no worries

Upvotes: 5

Porcupine
Porcupine

Reputation: 6505

In linux use system("clear") to clear the screen.

Upvotes: 10

Rakesh
Rakesh

Reputation: 2780

If you are using the default R console CTRL + L

RStudio - CTRL + L

Upvotes: 7

Ryan Blanchard
Ryan Blanchard

Reputation: 559

shell("cls") if on Windows,

shell("clear") if on Linux or Mac.

(shell() passes a command (or any string) to the host terminal.)

Upvotes: 39

bogec
bogec

Reputation: 438

cat("\f") may be easier to remember than cat("\014").

It works fine for me on Windows 10.

Upvotes: 32

Léo Léopold Hertz 준영
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영

Reputation: 141450

You can combine the following two commands

cat("\014"); 
cat(rep("\n", 50))

Upvotes: 4

jvd10
jvd10

Reputation: 1876

Here's a function:

clear <- function() cat(c("\033[2J","\033[0;0H"))

then you can simply call it, as you call any other R function, clear().

If you prefer to simply type clear (instead of having to type clear(), i.e. with the parentheses), then you can do

clear_fun <- function() cat(c("\033[2J","\033[0;0H"));
makeActiveBinding("clear", clear_fun, baseenv())

Upvotes: 18

Carl Witthoft
Carl Witthoft

Reputation: 21532

You may define the following function

clc <- function() cat(rep("\n", 50))

which you can then call as clc().

Upvotes: 37

Rindra
Rindra

Reputation: 1207

If you are using the default R console, the key combination Option + Command + L will clear the console.

Upvotes: 109

kmario23
kmario23

Reputation: 61505

In Ubuntu-Gnome, simply pressing CTRL+L should clear the screen.

This also seems to also work well in Windows 10 and 7 and Mac OS X Sierra.

Upvotes: 27

E Luxo So
E Luxo So

Reputation: 6344

cat("\014")

is the code to send CTRL+L to the console, and therefore will clear the screen.

Far better than just sending a whole lot of returns.

Upvotes: 628

papplegate
papplegate

Reputation: 171

I developed an R package that will do this, borrowing from the suggestions above. The package is called called mise, as in "mise en place." You can install and run it using

install.packages("mise")
library(mise)
mise()

Note that mise() also deletes all variables and functions and closes all figures by default. To just clear the console, use mise(vars = FALSE, figs = FALSE).

Upvotes: 17

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