What function clears the screen on a mac terminal? - c

Question

I'm new to C and I do not own a mac, but I'm working on a personal project for someone who does and part of the project's requirements is that it clears the screen. The reason I need to clear the screen is that it's part of a loop that clears the screen and then prints something again (I'm trying to make a "ticking counter" of sorts.)
I know that system("cls") works well on my terminal (obviously any system function isn't ideal though), however, I know that she's on a Mac OS, and that the system() function is notoriously nonportable and I need this to work on a mac. I've scoured the internet trying to see what system functions clear the screen on a mac, and the most recent source I could find was from 2006. Considering how often the mac gets updated, I'm not surprised that
I don't really need a solution that's elegant or secure, just an idea for something that works. My compiler is MinGW with GCC for libraries.
Here's a sample of the relevant code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <conio.h>
int main()
{
time_t seconds; //variable declarations
float days;
float rate;
int i;
i = 3;
char str[50];
while (i > 2);
{
time(&seconds);
days = (seconds - ((float)1584673594)) / (float)86400;
rate = pow(1.05, days);
rate = rate * 100;
printf("\nCurrent Snuggle-Debt Balance: %f snuggles\n", rate);
printf("Days passed: %f \n", days);
sleep(.5);
system("cls");

Answer 1

If you're writing a C program that uses standard input and output, and you need to do things like move the cursor around or clear part or all of the screen, the curses library is what you want. Curses is widely available and does what you want and much more. To clear the screen, just call the clear() function. And that's just the beginning of what you can do.