[SOLVED] Overwrite last line on terminal

Issue

My bash-script looks as following:

echo "Description:"
while [ $finishInput -eq 0 ]; do
  read tmp
  desc="$desc"$'\n'"$tmp"
  if [ -z "$tmp" ]; then
    finishInput="1"
  fi
done
echo -n "Maintainer:"
read maintainer

It reads to the desc var until a empty line is passed. After that, i want to read in other stuff.

When executing my current script it looks like this:

Description:
Line 1
Line 2

Maintainer:

I would like to overwrite the last empty line with the "Maintainer:".

I searched for a solution but only found suggestions which were like

echo -n "Old line"
echo -e "\r new line"

which stays on the line and overwrites it. This is not possible in my case.

Solution

In your example you delete the text at the same line. When you want to return to the previous line use \e[1A, and to clear that line, use \e[K:

echo 'Old line'
echo -e '\e[1A\e[Knew line'

When you want to go N lines up, use \e[<N>A

Answered By - Igor Chubin

Answer Checked By - Marilyn (WPSolving Volunteer)