Control - Z In Python Code

In IDLE, there's no clear screen, and after reading the forums the best method is plainly to print a ton of '\n's. However, after playing with IDLE, I made a discovery. When my gam

Solution 1:

^Z is a bit of a mess. The ascii control char ^D is usually interpreted as EOT, end of transmission, which on Unix and many other systems means end of file, close the application. Ascii ^Z is meant to be interpreted as SUB, substitute, whatever that means. Editors ofter use it as UNDO (meaning undo a ^X cut). Microsoft (and a few other old systems) at least sometimes interprets ^Z as end of file, with the same effect as ^D on *nix.

The Windows console closes a text app after ^Z . ^D is passes on to the app. IDLE, as a cross-platform app, closes on ^D. IDLE used to close on ^Z on Windows, but now, for me, it only erases the prompt. (I don't know if this alternative is intended.) I do not see the progressive deletion you report. What OS and what Python version are you running?

To answer your main question: you can't. input is usually used in assignment statements: string = input('prompt'). The way to imitate input statements is to directly assign 'user input': s = 'simulated user input'. However, this does not work for characters that get intercepted by the programs managing the input window and never sent to the python program.

IDLE's Shell generally imitates Python's interactive console. The latter (at least on Windows) makes everything, except the current input, read-only. Shell follows suite. Imitation is especially strict as regards executing user code. It is intended that user code tested in IDLE should run in Python without IDLE. It would be wrong for IDLE to clear the interactive shell in response to user code when Python cannot.

For editor and output windows, ^A (select all) followed by Backspace (delete), Delete, or ^X (cut) do clear the window.

Shell does, however, has more editing commands than many (most? all?) consoles and a menu system. These additions are allowed since they are interactive only and not accessible from user code. There have been various proposals and patches to enable clearing part or all of the shell window. https://bugs.python.org/issue6143 has some of the discussions and proposals.