Over write text in a window's console application

Friday, March 28, 2003

Today I had a need to display a counter on a Console application and I was trying to think of a way to over write the existing number with the new number in the console window, using C#. So after thinking about it for a minute it came to me, just write backspace characters. Well anyways just incase anyone would ever need this here is a simple example:

for(int i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
{
  if(i > 0)
    Console.WriteLine(new string('\b', (i-1).ToString().Length));

  Console.WriteLine(i.ToString());
}

5 Comments

I needed this today so thanks. :-)

Gary Woodfine - Thursday, February 8, 2007 10:30:01 AM

I've just used this, but I had to replace WriteLine with Write

Stephen Paulger - Friday, March 9, 2007 1:01:54 AM

Thanks Wes, I needed this for something.

Ryan Reeves - Tuesday, May 1, 2007 3:21:21 PM

Excellant worked a treat

Michael - Wednesday, July 9, 2008 10:21:25 AM

For what it's worth, here's another way:

using System;
using System.Threading;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.CursorVisible = false;

for (int i = 0; i < 30; i++)
{
int cursorLeft = Console.CursorLeft;
int cursorTop = Console.CursorTop;

Console.Write(string.Format("{0}/30", i + 1));

if (i != 30)
Console.SetCursorPosition(cursorLeft, cursorTop);

Thread.Sleep(100);
}

Console.CursorVisible = true;
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("Press the any key to exit...");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}

Robert - Tuesday, July 7, 2009 6:56:37 PM

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