Is it possible to recall a println in Java?

Question

Say I am making a command-line interface. I want to print out a string, and then change it. For example, when you run the program, it prints out

Hello, World!

A few seconds later, though, the message gets changed to:

Hello, Computer User!

Is this possible? Cross-OS would be preferable.

Answer 1

You could echo the \b escape sequence, which is backspace, and then write out a new message, in place of the old-one.

Do note, this might not be completely cross-platform, as it is upto the console itself and how it interprets \b, but it should work mostly.

Answer 2

try

    String s1 = "Hello, word!";
    System.out.print(s1);
    Thread.sleep(1000);
    for(int i = 0; i < s1.length(); i++) {
        System.out.print('\b');
    }
    System.out.print("Hello, computer user");

note that it does not work from Eclipse, run it from command line