How make linux output "async" output like, htop or top

Question

How can I make a output like htop?

That is to say that the information is continually reinforced. I had thought of something like this but I don't think it's completely right and I'm sure there are better ways to do it.

while true ; do
   ls
   sleep 3
   clear
done

I would like to do it with bash but I am open to other proposals.

ROOT · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-22T07:02:47.250

2

You can use watch utility for such a task:

$ watch -n 10 script.sh

the above command will execute the script.sh every 10 seconds you can change it through n option.

or for your command you can do it like this:

$ watch -n 3 ls

edited Jan 22 '20 at 07:02

answered Jan 18 '20 at 08:49

ROOT

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Thank you very much, it is exactly what I was marrying, I had no knowledge of this bait. – Alejandro López Jan 18 '20 at 11:21
"marrying"? "bait"? Are you using an automatic translator? – Stephen C Jan 18 '20 at 12:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 18 '20 at 07:18

1

htop uses ncurses (https://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/) which is a C library developed for making terminal interfaces.

If you'd like to stick with plain old bash, you could try echoing some output, then echoing backspace \b characters and spaces to overwrite it, followed by echoing new output again. You can also make use of system tools like tput to get terminal dimensions and things of that nature. I would suggest not going the bash route however.

answered Jan 18 '20 at 07:18

tmathmeyer

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could you put an example using bash? – Alejandro López Jan 18 '20 at 07:24
This SO [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/12628482/6018272) shows how to update the same line with `echo`. – Zheng Qu Jan 18 '20 at 12:16

How make linux output "async" output like, htop or top

2 Answers2