cls alteratuve

The best alternative is not to clear the screen. Most of the time when I see things like system("cls") or clrscr() , there's no legitimate reason for clearing the screen.

However, since you're using Windows you might consider the Win32 API as a reasonably portable (on Windows) solution. If you're dead set on clearing the screen, that is:

#include <windows.h>

void clear_screen()
{
    HANDLE h = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
    CONSOLE_SCREEN_BUFFER_INFO buf;
    
    GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(h, &buf);
    
    DWORD size = buf.dwSize.X * buf.dwSize.Y;
    COORD pos = {0};
    DWORD n;
    
    FillConsoleOutputCharacter(h, TEXT(' '), size, pos, &n);
    FillConsoleOutputAttribute(h, buf.wAttributes, size, pos, &n);
    SetConsoleCursorPosition(h, pos);
}

I already use cls the reason is that I want it to be able to be ported to many different computers aka school network (there going to use it as a actual finace tracking/simulation thing because it's not the usual flavor of these sort of things) and since half of our school uses apple some on win and a few more on Linux~ I also make it go fullscreen so text tends to get stuck at the bottom of the screen and /n doesn't fix that.
Edit: oh yeah I remembered my idea: could I just get the code from cmd.exe or wherever system commands go and put in my program for ultamate portability

For ultimate portability you have two options:

1. Don't use non-portable features
2. Implement the non-portable feature for every target system

In other words, don't clear the screen and don't go full screen if you don't want to write a Windows-specific build, a Linux-specific, and a Mac-specific build.

Oh, why can't I just extract the code widows runs when cls is called and put that in my program? Mainly how do I tell what kind of os the person is using from my program, I think I hard about it but can't really type that into google.

Oh, why can't I just extract the code widows runs when cls is called and put that in my program?

Go for it...

Wait I can really do that!?! How? PS how do I tell what os the user is using I just can't find it in the mountain of papers in my backyard it's called lone mountain(yes thé one in Vegas); it's actualy all just my reference papers and encyclopedias.

Compiler translates your code to native machine code. You cannot have a compiled binary which runs on all the platforms.

True for C and C++. Experts please correct me if I'm wrong.

Wait I can really do that!?!

No. I only said that because you won't accept that a portable CLS cannot be done.
Honest, it cannot be done.

Ok :( then what is the equivalent of cls on the other two giants: OSX and LINUX

system("clear") is the equivalent to system("cls") on both Linux and OSX.