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DECERA — erase rectangular area

Category: editing · Baseline: legacy · Tags: VT510 · Specification ↗

CSI Pt ; Pl ; Pb ; Pr $ z
DECERA (CSI Pt ; Pl ; Pb ; Pr $ z) erases a rectangular region from rows Pt-Pb, columns Pl-Pr, replacing each cell with a space and the current SGR background. Unlike a global ED, DECERA leaves protected characters (set via DECSCA) untouched, making it safe inside form-fill applications that have static labels alongside editable fields. Companion to DECFRA. Another VT420-era feature surviving mostly in xterm and mintty.
How this is testedpartial
Write text across multiple rows, send \x1b[1;1;3;5$z (erase rows 1-3, cols 1-5), verify cells in the rectangle are blank.

The same probe runs against headless backends (via Termless) and real terminal apps (via a daemon launched in each terminal). This lets us distinguish parser correctness from rendering correctness.

Analysis2026-04-06

Supported by all 9 tested terminals — universal adoption. Part of the Unicode baseline.

Supported by 11 of 14 backends (79%)

Terminal Applications

TerminalVersionSupportNotes
iTerm23.6.9✓ yessequence consumed
Ghostty1.3.1✓ yessequence consumed
Terminal.app2.15✓ yessequence consumed
Kitty0.46.2✓ yessequence consumed
VS Code1.113.0? unknown
Warp0.2026.03.18.08.24.03? unknown
Cursor2.6.21? unknown

Headless Backends

Parser correctness only — a means the parser accepts the sequence.

BackendVersionSupportNotes
Alacritty0.26.0✓ yes
vt100.js0.2.1✓ yes
vterm0.2.0✓ yes
WezTerm0.1.0-fork.5✓ yes
xterm.js5.5.0✓ yes