Why doesn't sys.stdout.write('\b') backspace against newlines?

Question

Compare:

for item in range(0, 5):
    sys.stdout.write('c')
for item in range(0, 5):
    sys.stdout.write('\b')

Works as you would imagine, but:

for item in range(0, 5):
    sys.stdout.write('\n')
for item in range(0, 5):
    sys.stdout.write('\b')

still leaves you with five newline characters. Any ideas?

Answer 1

It may seem reasonable today to expect backspace to be able to work over newline characters, on a console but that would not be backward compatible with teletypes as there is no reverse linefeed.

Answer 2

This is about the behavior of console windows: backspaces only work within a line, they won't backup over newlines.