How do I erase printed characters in a console application(Linux)?

Question

I am creating a small console app that needs a progress bar. Something like...

Conversion: 175/348 Seconds   |==========          |  50%

My

Answer 1

This seems to be pretty old topic but I will drop my 5 into.

for ($i; $i<_POSITION_; $i--) {
   echo "\010"; //issue backspace 
}

Found this on the internet some time ago, unfortunately don't remember where. So all credits goes to original author.