rxvt - how to clear scrollback

Question

I was hoping this would be an easy one but I don't see it in the man page and couldn't find it googling. Is there a keyboard shortcut or even a console command I can use to clear the scrolback buffer in rxvt/urxvt? Ctrl-l clears the current screen but the buffer remains.

I appreciate it.

-- Henry

score 17 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 27 '16 at 00:59

17

If you want to clear the scroll-back by pressing Ctrl-L, add this to your ~/.Xresources

URxvt.keysym.Control-l: command:\033c

This is like running:

echo -ne '\033c'

However it outputs the text to the terminal, without having to execute a command on the prompt.

Prefer this since it can be used while a program runs.

answered Nov 27 '16 at 00:59

ideasman42

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This is fantastic! Do you know if there's a specification for these commands defined anywhere? I tried googling but failed to find the name of it. – Avindra Goolcharan May 21 '17 at 16:20
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Where has this been all my life. Sigh... I really wish it was easy to find gems like this! – étale-cohomology Feb 16 '18 at 10:17
This should be the accepted answer. – mattsson Oct 20 '22 at 07:46

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 11 '13 at 04:18

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In rxvt (running bash shell) the reset command work correctly.

answered Apr 11 '13 at 04:18

slackmart

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However it's very slow. Takes a few seconds for me. – Babken Vardanyan Jul 26 '14 at 10:37
This can't be used easily while a programs running. – ideasman42 Mar 16 '17 at 00:14
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This still takes a couple of seconds using top-of-the-line hardware. It's *way* faster to simply close the terminal and start it up again! That's unacceptable. – étale-cohomology Feb 16 '18 at 10:18

rxvt - how to clear scrollback

2 Answers2