Develop Reference

how to clear the screen in pycharm

I know these are questions: this and this and this. I have tried all of these methods in pycharm, but they either a) not work or b) I get a weird character on my screen, that looks like a 0 with diagonal line going through it. I can't copy it for some reason, so I can't show you.
For instance this:
import os
from time import sleep
print("lots of text")
sleep(5)
os.system('cls')
What should happen in the above is tht the message should be displayed for 5 seconds then disappear, but all I get is that weird character... In contrast when I ran my python program from command line, it worked as expected i.e. the screen cleared. I am very confused.
So my questions are:
Why don't any of them work in pycharm?
What does work in pycharm?

Ok, so, I have been having this problem as well — after scouring the internet, the os commands work BUT you need to enable the terminal emulator.
In the PyCharm toolbar, click Run, Edit Configurations, and the toggle for "Emulate Terminal in Output Console" should be under Execution in the pop up. Emulate Terminal toggle
I had to get help from the PyCharm team on this one, so here's to them responding at lightning speed.

Answer
The cls command doesn't work on a standard pycharm project because it is an IDE and certain os commands don't work in the same way it would with the windows command line.
There is currently no way to clear the console output in PyCharm, other than to manually do it by using the cls command through the terminal in PyCharm or through a keyboard shortcut set through the pycharm preferences menu. You can try to emulate a keyboard shortcut, but this would be difficult, and unless you absolutely need it, I would not recommend clearing the terminal output after a program is run.
References and Additional Links
https://teamtreehouse.com/community/clear-screen-for-pycharm-as-if-it-were-on-console-or-cmd

I don't know in which version of PyCharm this was introduced. I guess it must have been after this question was asked.
The way to clear the PyCharm Python Console is by using the context menu. Right mouse click in the upper part of the console (where the lines with >>> prompts are closer together) and select Clear All.
Alse see this PyCharm Support Community article.
Incidentally, none of the questions linked to in the OP's original post relate to PyCharm and do not answer the OP's question.

cls only temporarily clears it. Next command brings back all previous messages. The best option is to right click on the Terminal and choose Clear Buffer

Python 3 Debugging issue

I have recently started to learn Python 3 and have run into an issue while trying to learn how to debug using IDLE. I have created a basic program following a tutorial, which then explains how to use the debugger. However, I keep running into an issue while stepping through the code, which the tutorial does not explain (I have followed the instructions perfectly) nor does hours of searching on the internet. Basically if I step while already inside a function, usually following print() the debugger steps into pyshell.py, specifically, PyShell.py:1285: write() if i step out of pyshell, the debugger will simple step back in as soon as I try to move on, if this is repeated the step, go, etc buttons will grey out.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

pyshell.py file opens during the debugging process when the function that is under review is found in Python's library - for example print() or input(). If you want to bypass this file/process click Over and it will step over this review of the function in Python's library.

In Python 3.4, I had the same problem. My tutorial is from Invent with Python by Al Sweigart, chapter 7.
New file editor windows such as pyshell.py and random.pyopen when built-in functions are called, such as input(), print(), random.randint(), etc. Then the STEP button starts stepping through the file it opened.
If you click OVER, you will have to click it several times, but if you click OUT, pyshell.py will close immediately and you'll be back in the original file you were trying to debug.
Also, I encountered problems confusing this one--the grayed-out buttons you mentioned--if I forgot to click in the shell and give input when the program asked. I tried Wing IDE and it didn't run the program correctly, although the program has no bugs. So I googled the problem, and there was no indication that IDLE is broken or useless.
Therefore, I kept trying till the OUT button in the IDLE debugger solved the problem.

Python IDLE. Auto-complete/Show completions not working

IDLE is being very dodgy as to when it will actually show an Auto-complete menu. As of late it hasn't been working at all, or, more specifically, only works during an interactive session.
I've been using Code Blocks for C, and have gotten really used to the very nice auto-complete features, so it's a bit frustrating not having them -- especially while trying to learn a new frame work and what class is associated with which methods, etc, etc..
Is there an easy fix to get IDLE auto-complete working again? I'm using python version 2.7.
Is there perhaps a simple editor I should look into? I've tried Vim, which was a little too heavy for my simple needs, Ninja, which I couldn't get to work for anything, and Sublime text 2, which I couldn't get my wxpython stuff to play with. What would a nice option be? Anything similar to Code Blocks would be cool, although, I'd be perfectly happy with IDLE if it would consistently work!
REQUESTED CLARIFICATION:
OK, so it seems I may have some of my terminology backwards. By non-interactive, I mean, for instance, right clicking on a python file and selecting "edit with IDLE". This brings up what I guess could be described as a text editor. You can enter all you code here. Once ready, you then hit F5, or select Run, and it launches (what I've been referring to as) the interactive terminal. It's here that you can type in code, press return, and instantly have that code evaluated.
What my question is referring to it the former, the part of IDLE where you edit the code. Sometimes while typing, after a . it will display the available methods, or after an open parenthesis it'll give hints as to the values expected. but the thing is, sometimes it does these things, sometimes it doesn't.

The only thing i found so far is that if an editing session of IDLE is connected with python shell (called "interactive mode" in the question, i.e. after an attempt to run the edited script) then "non-interactive" IDLE can autocomplete based on values in interactive window. For example, if I type
a = [];
a.appen
and then hit < Tab > it will do nothing, but if I previously type
a = []
in corresponding python shell, IDLE will autocomplete correctly.
So my only suggestion is import same modules with same names in python shell window in order to make them "visible" for non-interactive IDLE editor.

I had the same problem with IDLE, because I want to learn Qt and therefore autocompletion is very useful.
As it says in the settings of IDLE, you can trigger the autocomplete with "Control + Space", e.g. after a "QtGui.". Then a menu opens where you can arrow-scroll through the entries.

using the 'IDLE Editor window', you need to save and execute your code first.
The application running, turn back to the Editor window to use the auto-completion.

In my case, I had to open Options menu -> Extensions tab on the editor and look to make sure AutoComplete and other relevant options were enabled. They actually were, but by just clicking on 'Apply' even though I dint have to change anything did the trick for me.

Sometimes it has to do with the time you have to wait to get a suggestions.
When you go to options > extensions > general at completions popup wait you can change it to about 500ms.
In my case it was 2000ms by default.

Anyway to bring up suggestion box when typing python code

I'm learning wxpython right now and one thing that helps me ALOT is when I'm typing in the text editor I sometimes press the tab key to give me a hint on what I'm looking for...This is great when it works but I notice sometimes it doesn't work and I get lost looking for a syntax I can't remember...
Question is how can I get the suggestion box to pop back up again, Or what am I doing that causes it to stop coming up...
if it matters I backtracked to 2.7 to learn wx, Windows 7
Edit: More specifically... when I type: wx.(Here is normally when I would press tab)

What editor do you use??
Without knowing that there's no way we can possibly help you.
FWIW in vim I use C-x [onp]

indent with 'tab' button in python commandline

hi everyone :)
my problem is, up until now, i have exclusively used tabs to indent python, as i find it easier than spaces, but for no reason i know, python interactive prompt, the basic python.exe one, suddenly refuses to accept the tab button, all it does is flash the cursor. all i can think of is that my computer in suddenly treading the window like any other, using tab to cycle input things, in this case the single one. also, before now, i could use the up button to reach previously typed code, the if i submit that line with no changes, use the down button to access the line that came after it, but now up works, but as if i had changed the line, eg moves me back to the "bottom" of the list of inputs, so down doesn't work.... my question simply is: how do i get my good old tab and down button to work like i want them to again? :(
thanks xxx

If you are using Windows with the standard cmd.exe console (and it would have been helpful for you to have stated this up front) then you can use the TAB and arrow keys exactly as you desire.

I recently observed this behavior too, on Windows, using cmd.exe. It also happens with Console2 - an alternate shell I sometimes use.
Though I do always use spaces in normal code in an editor, I had been accustomed to using the Tab key to indent in short multi-line inputs in the interactive python.exe interpreter. Recently that stopped working - pressing the Tab key flashes the cursor and doesn't indent. Using spaces does work fine here, though it's not as convenient past a couple of indentations.
I suspect (but am not certain) that the cause was installation of pyreadline or rlcompleter - I had been messing with trying to get tab completion in an interpreter in an embedded application on Windows. Of course in your case another installation could have included those packages.