Q: remaining 0 printed after using "\r" in C++ code

May 8, 2022

I created a program that works like a countdown and I ran into an error:
Everything is printed fine until the seconds fall (counter.second) bellow 10, then it prints 90 instead of 9 ( or 09 ), 80 instead of 8 and so on.

If I remove "\r" the "Time remaining text" will be printed the "counter" amount of times besides one another, without this error, but that would fill my cmd which is worse.

Other than that, everything works as expected.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

#include <iostream>
#include <windows.h>

int main() {
    std::pair<int, int> counter;
    std::pair<int, int> aux;

    std::cin >> counter.first;
    std::cin >> counter.second;

    while (1) {

        aux.first = counter.first;
        aux.second = counter.second;

        while (aux.first >= 0 && aux.second >= 0)
        {
            std::cout << "\rTime remaining: " << aux.first << ":" << aux.second << std::flush;
         
            Sleep(1000);  

            if (aux.second == 0) {
                aux.first--;
                aux.second = 60;
            }
            aux.second--; 
        }
        PlaySound(TEXT("retro.wav"), NULL, SND_ASYNC);
    }

    return 0;
}