Clear Screen Command for BASH shell

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I am unable to use clear or cls command on bash shell. I have recently installed Cygwin and am using that for practicing unix commands.

I see that I can use Ctrl + L to clear the screen. I created an alias in my .bashrc to do the same as
alias cls='^L'

This is how i defined other aliases e.g.
alias ll='ls -l'
alias la='ls -a'

and they work. Hence I assume cls will work too but this is what I get when I try to give cls on command prompt. Am i missing something? Is there a way to do this?

$ cls
bash: $'\f': command not found

2

You cannot alias keystrokes to commands or vice versa. You could just alias cls to an echo command: echo -en "\x0c"

3

Hi Corona688,

I did the following as suggested by you,

alias cls='echo -en "\x0c"'

Sourced the .bashrc file. No errors but cls still does not clear the screen.
Infact when I typed the echo -en "\x0c on command prompt as well, nothing happened.
What does this command do? Could you explain in detail as well. Thanks much

4

Does clear not work?

5

Nope, Clear is not recognized. I get command not found error.
I thought maybe I missed a package while installing Cygwin. Please help

---------- Post updated at 09:37 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:54 PM ----------

Installing ncurses package from Cygwin.com worked for me!!!