If by "top-ish" command, you mean the output of a heading and then a set of elements below, I wrote a module for that which I haven't published yet. There are also other terminal toolkits like Tickit.

Before I paste the wall-of-text that is my module, can you explain a bit more what you want?

Most of my module reduces to:

has 'term_scroll_up' => (
    is => 'lazy',
    default => sub { $_[0]->terminfo->Tputs('UP') },
);

has 'term_clear_eol' => (
    is => 'lazy',
    default => sub { $_[0]->terminfo->Tputs('ce') },
);
[download]

and the idea is to output the list, and then scroll the cursor back up to where we started printing that list.

Thanks!

Here's three options:

1. Use watch(1). It's fairly standard on linux (I think). It will run a perl script periodically. A problem is it won't allow scrolling (or any interaction).
2. Use Curses.pm Here's an example I wrote for RosettaCode.org https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Tetris#Perl
3. Use ANSI control sequences. Again, here's an example I wrote for RosettaCode.org https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Forest_fire#Alternate_Perl_Solution

Thanks! I'll check these out.

Have you searched the CPAN? Modules such as NetServer::Portal::Top and scripts like bkpr-top appear to implement a top-like interface as well.

Thanks! I searched CPAN a good bit + missed both these.

..But never write "PERL"..

L*