but the actual formatting would need more than a small amout of code to get the same effect as wget's one.

This being perl and all you can do it in one line.... I made the sub 5 lines for documentation and data integrity purposes!

do{ print progress_bar( $_, 100, 25, '=' ); sleep 1 } for 1..100;

# print a progress bar, inputs should be self explanatory otherwise ju
+st RTFS!
sub progress_bar {
    my ( $got, $total, $width, $char ) = @_;
    $width ||= 25;
    $char  ||= '=';
    $num_width = length $total;
    sprintf "|%-${width}s| Got %${num_width}s bytes of %s (%.2f%)\r", 
        $char x (($width-1)*$got/$total). '>', $got, $total, 100*$got/
+$total;
}
__DATA__
|==========>              | Got  42 bytes of 100 (42.00%)
[download]

Gotta love perl and functions like x sprintf/printf

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print