Sometime the content of the minibuffer shows the output of a command (emacs 24). This is not too much of an inconvenience when the output is just one line. It's more annoying when the command is multiple lines long and the minibuffer uses many lines of display that could be used for something else.
Is there a way to clear the content of the minibuffer ?
Note: When I M-! echo usage: foo ; echo the minibuffer content changes to usage: foo.
Note: I'm not in recursive edit, the minibuffer is not active, using C-g, M-x C-g , (message nil), M-x delete-minibuffer-contents, M-: (kill-buffer " Echo Area 0") does not clear the minibuffer
Although I do not understand why following clears the minibuffer: M-! echo ; echo