Is There a Paging Version of `watch` Command?

lesspagingshellunixwatch

Under a UNIX shell, how can I get a similar effect to the watch command, but with paging so that I can scroll around in the output if it takes up more than one screen?

In other words, I want a program that is to watch what less is to cat.

As an example, lets say I wanted to watch the output of qstat, I could use

watch qstat

to watch the output of qstat, but this can only shows the first screenful.

With a paging version of watch, I would be able to move around in the output as it is still continuously updated by watch. Is there any way to do this at the moment with existing utilities?

Best Answer

Rather than modifying the 'watch' command, use screen!

For example, let's say that you need to be able to see 300 lines of height and 100 characters of width and move around that. After starting screen, force the size thus:

C-a :height -w 300
C-a :width -w 100

Now start your watch command. You can then use C-a <ESC> to page around the display.

Unfortunately, the display doesn't refresh while in copy mode. But if you want to adjust which section of the window you're viewing, the easiest way may be to rerun the height/width commands as by default your terminal shows the lower-right of the virtual window.

Related Solutions

Recursive move utility on Unix

Per the mv(1) manpage from gnu's mv:

-u, --update move only when the SOURCE file is newer than the destination file or when the destination file is missing

bash – Configure Bash to Always Page Output

You could do this:

$ bind '"\C-j": "|less\C-m"'

Or put this in your ~/.inputrc:

"\C-j": "|less\C-m"

Then when you want to do ls -l|less you'd type ls -l and press control-J instead of <enter>.

I would not recommend swapping the j and m in the bind command (or in the .inputrc file). Every time you'd press <enter> you'd get |less added which could be pretty annoying.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Recursive move utility on Unix

bash – Configure Bash to Always Page Output

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