while (1) {
    my $top_output = `top -l 1`;
    do_something_with( $top_output );
    sleep 5;
}

[download]
From `man top`:
-l <samples>
Use logging mode and display <samples> samples, even if standard output is a terminal. 0 is treated as infinity. Rather than redisplaying, output is periodically printed in raw form.

In reply to Re: Capturing top-like program output by Util
in thread Capturing top-like program output by Alien

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