Carriage Return not working in IDLE?

Question

I\'m trying to create a code for a countdown timer that stays in place: so that each line overwrites the previous one. This is what I have so far:

import tim         


        

Answer 1

When \r doesn't work, try \x08 (backspace), and add the flush=True to be safe:

print('\x08' * 5 + timeformat, end='', flush=True)

Answer 2

IDLE doesn't support most control characters such as \r, \b. It is still true in 2020 (no support in Python 3.9)

\r should work if you start Python REPL in a Unix terminal or in Windows console instead.