clear

What it does

How to write it

clear [-x] [-T TYPE] [-V]

Most used

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$ run as a normal user# run as root (or with sudo)

1. 1Clear the screen

   $clear

   The prompt moves to the top of the window.

2. 2Clear the screen with the keyboard

   $# press Ctrl+L

   Faster than typing clear. Works in Bash and most programs.

3. 3Keep the scrollback, clear only the screen

   $clear -x

   You can still scroll up to see older output.

4. 4Clear the screen before a demo or a screen share

   $clear && history -c

   Clean screen and no old commands with internal names or tokens.

5. 5Fix a terminal that prints strange signs

   $reset

   reset sets up the terminal again. Use it after you cat a binary file by mistake.

6. 6Clear the screen at the start of a menu script

   $clear; echo "1) status  2) restart  3) logs"; read -p "Choice: " c

   Each time the menu shows, the old output is gone.

7. 7Refresh a simple status view every 5 seconds

   $while true; do clear; date; systemctl is-active httpd sshd; sleep 5; done

   A tiny dashboard. watch does this better: watch -n5 'systemctl is-active httpd sshd'.

8. 8Clear for another terminal type

   $clear -T xterm

   Rarely needed: when $TERM is wrong for the terminal you use.

9. 9Use the tput way in a portable script

   $tput clear

   Same result; tput can also set colors and move the cursor.

10. 10Clear the screen and the scrollback in a jump host session

    $clear && printf '\e[3J'

    Some terminals keep the scrollback; the extra code removes it too. Good after showing secrets.

11. 11Make an alias that clears and lists

    $alias cls='clear; ls -l'

    Personal shortcut; put it in ~/.bashrc.

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