Overview The clear command clears the terminal screen and moves the cursor to the top-left position. It provides a clean workspace by removing all previous output from view.
Syntax Description The clear command sends ANSI escape sequences to the terminal to:
Clear the entire screen (\x1b[2J)
Move the cursor to the home position (top-left: \x1b[H)
This effectively gives you a fresh terminal view, though the command history is preserved.
Options The clear command does not accept any options, flags, or arguments.
Examples Basic Usage clear # Screen is cleared, cursor moves to top-left
Clear Between Tasks ls -la cat file.txt grep pattern data.txt # Clear screen before starting new task clear echo "Starting new task"
Clear in Scripts # script.sh echo "Processing data..." cat data.txt | grep important # Clear before showing results clear echo "Results:" grep -c important data.txt
Practical Use Cases Clean Workspace # After lots of output, clear for readability find / -name "*.txt" # ... lots of output ... clear echo "Ready for next command"
Script Sections # Separate script sections visually echo "Step 1: Preparation" mkdir -p output clear echo "Step 2: Processing" cat input.txt | grep data > output/result.txt clear echo "Step 3: Complete" ls -l output/
# Simple menu script while true ; do clear echo "=== Main Menu ===" echo "1. Show files" echo "2. Show environment" echo "3. Exit" echo "" # ... handle input ... done
Before Important Output # Clear before showing important information clear echo "======================" echo " CRITICAL ALERT" echo "======================" echo "System status: ERROR"
Development Workflow # Clear before each test run clear echo "Running tests..." # run tests
Demonstration Scripts # Demo script with clear sections clear echo "Demo: File Operations" echo "" echo "Creating files..." touch demo1.txt demo2.txt ls -l demo * .txt echo "" echo "Press enter to continue" read clear echo "Demo: Text Processing" echo "" echo "hello world" | grep hello
Terminal Behavior The clear command:
Does clear: Visible terminal outputDoes clear: Screen contentsDoes NOT clear: Command history (use history to view)Does NOT clear: Scrollback buffer (may vary by terminal)Does NOT clear: Environment variablesDoes NOT clear: Working directory ANSI Escape Sequences Under the hood, clear outputs:
\x1b[2J - Clear entire screen \x1b[H - Move cursor to home (1,1)
This is equivalent to:
Alternative Methods clear command
echo with ANSI
Multiple newlines
clear # Simplest and most portable
echo -e "\x1b[2J\x1b[H" # Manual escape sequence
echo "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" # Poor alternative (doesn't truly clear)
Combining with Other Commands Clear and show directory
Clear and show status
Clear between operations
Clear and display info
In Loops and Scripts Updating Display # Simulate updating display for i in 1 2 3 4 5 ; do clear echo "Processing step $i /5..." # simulate work done clear echo "Complete!"
Progress Indicator # Show progress on clean screen COUNT = 0 while [ " $COUNT " -lt 10 ]; do clear echo "Progress: $COUNT /10" COUNT = $(( COUNT + 1 )) done
Common Patterns Clear Before Error Messages if test ! -f config.json ; then clear echo "ERROR: config.json not found" exit 1 fi
Clear After Verbose Output find . -name "*.log" # potentially lots of output clear echo "Search complete"
Clear for User Interaction clear echo "Enter your name:" read NAME echo "Hello, $NAME "
Terminal Compatibility The clear command uses ANSI escape sequences that are supported by most modern terminals:
✅ xterm, xterm-256color
✅ VT100/VT220 terminals
✅ Modern terminal emulators (iTerm2, Terminal.app, GNOME Terminal, etc.)
❌ Very old or non-ANSI terminals may not support this
Nash defaults to TERM=xterm-256color, so clear should work in most environments. Most terminals maintain a scrollback buffer: echo "line 1" echo "line 2" echo "line 3" clear # Screen is clear, but you can scroll up to see previous lines
The clear command does not clear the scrollback buffer—only the visible screen. Shell State Preservation After clear, all shell state is preserved:
export MY_VAR = value cd /home/user/projects clear # State is preserved echo $MY_VAR # Output: value pwd # Output: /home/user/projects history | tail -5 # Shows commands before clear
Notes
The clear command has no options or arguments
It always returns exit code 0 (success)
Command history is not affected
Environment variables remain unchanged
Current directory remains unchanged
Useful for script readability and organization
Does not affect terminal scrollback buffer
Exit Status The clear command always returns exit code 0 (success).
echo - Print text to screenhistory - View command historyhelp - Display help information 