Can you clear the System Console without restarting Blender?

Question

The question is simple enough, but I can't find the answer. Is there an operator or something similar that clears the Blender System Console history? I would also be willing to create an operator type script to "purge" the console. It would be interesting to see if it's possible, or I'm just "delirious". Restarting blender doesn't take long, but it would be nice to have a "Button" to do this.

Answer 1

Below is an example add-on that adds a button to the text editor for this purpose. Clearing the console is done with the platform specific commands cls for Windows and clear for Linux and macOS. Both are executed through os.system(command)

bl_info = {
    "name": "Clear System Console",
    "author": "Robert Guetzkow",
    "version": (1, 0, 0),
    "blender": (2, 81, 0),
    "location": "Text Editor Header",
    "description": "Clear the system console.",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "Text Editor"}

import bpy
import os


class CLEARCONSOLE_OT_clear(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "clearconsole.clear"
    bl_label = "Clear System Console"
    bl_description = "This operator clears the system console."
    bl_options = {"REGISTER"}

    def execute(self, context):
        if os.name == "nt":
            os.system("cls") 
        else:
            os.system("clear") 
        return {"FINISHED"}


def draw(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(CLEARCONSOLE_OT_clear.bl_idname)


classes = (CLEARCONSOLE_OT_clear,)


def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
        
    bpy.types.TEXT_HT_header.append(draw)


def unregister():
    bpy.types.TEXT_HT_header.remove(draw)
    
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Answer 2

You can use os.system and call cls or clear:

• os.system('cls')
• os.system('clear')

sort of snippet:

from os import system
cls = lambda: system('cls')

cls() #this function call will clear the console

Answer 3

As of 2021, there is an operator for this.

1. Clear command history only:

bpy.ops.console.clear(scrollback=False, history=True)

2. Clear command history and scrollback history:

bpy.ops.console.clear(history=True)

3. Clear scrollback history only:

bpy.ops.console.clear()

Reference: Blender's source code here.