creating a loading bar?

[darktemp]

I've always loved how McAfee made a boot time loading bar that basically looks like a spinning bar of /, |, \, -, /, | iterated over and over. Unfortunately I have no idea how to delete things that are already printed in console. Anyone have any ideas?

I appreciate the help :].

[YarrOfDoom]

You could try using the backspace escape sequence \b (note that this won't work in IDLE, in case you want to experiment with it).

[bvdet]

I don't know how to do it in a console, but here's a way to cycle characters in a GUI that responds to events:

from Tkinter import *
from itertools import cycle

class SpinLabel(Frame):
    def __init__(self, master=None):
        Frame.__init__(self, master)
        self.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)
        self.master.title("Spin Characters")
        self.textList = ["/", "--", "\\", "--", "|"]
        buttonFrame = Frame(self)
        self.btnList = []
        for i, name in enumerate(["Start", "Stop", "Exit"]):
            btn = Button(buttonFrame, text=name, padx=5, pady=5,
                         bd=4, bg='#ff0', fg="#00f",
                         activebackground = "#00f",
                         activeforeground = "#ff0",
                         font=("Arial", 12, "bold"),
                         relief='raised')
            btn.pack(side="left", fill=BOTH, expand=1)
                     
            def handler(event, i=i):
                return self.manage_spin(i)
            btn.bind("<ButtonRelease-1>", handler)
            self.btnList.append(btn)
        buttonFrame.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)
        
        self.spin = Label(self, font=("Tahoma", 24, 'bold'),fg='#000')
        self.spin.pack(side="top", fill=BOTH, expand=1)
        self.spinChrs = cycle(self.textList)

    def manage_spin(self, idx):
        if idx == 0:
            self.btnList[0].configure(state=DISABLED)
            self.spinning = True
            self.looping()
        elif idx == 1:
            self.btnList[0].configure(state=NORMAL)
            self.spinning = False
            self.spin.config(text="")
        elif idx == 2:
            self.master.destroy()

    def looping(self):
        if self.spinning:
            self.spin.config(text=self.spinChrs.next())
            self.spin.update_idletasks()
            self.spin.after(100, self.looping)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = SpinLabel()
    app.mainloop()