CPAN is your friend: Term::ProgressBar. It's also trivial to roll your own with \r (or not so trivially but possibly more robust with Term::Cap).

This is probably what you want, a wget-style progressbar.

#!/usr/bin/perl

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

# figure out how to work it in to your program 

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;
}
[download]

Your line

sprintf "|%-${width}s| Got %${num_width}s bytes of %s (%.2f%)\r",
[download]

should really read

sprintf "|%-${width}s| Got %${num_width}s bytes of %s (%.2f%%)\r",
[download]

Cheers, Matt

You may know more about sprintf's formats than me, but adding an extra % , as you suggest, dosn't change the behavior at all. Can you explain why?

---

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Cogito ergo sum a bum

sub init_tumble
{
    my $every = shift || 0;
    my(@tumble) = ('-', '\\', '|', '/');
    my $tsub = 0;
    my $count = 0;
    my $rs = sub
        {
             $count++;
             $saved_autoflush = STDOUT->autoflush;
             if($every)
             {
                 return if $count % $every;
             }
             STDOUT->autoflush(1);
             print "$tumble[$tsub++]\b";
             $tsub = 0 if $tsub > 3;
             STDOUT->autoflush($saved_autoflush);
         };
    return $rs;
}
[download]

You would call it like this

my $tumble = init_tumble(25)
...
while(some condition)
{
    $tumble->();
    ...
    do some stuff
    ...
}
[download]

I hope this is of use.

Cheers,

JohnGG

A method I like to use for progress meters is to create a closure that lets you define all parameters up front, and then call the closure to update.

Here's an example:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use warnings;

sub progress_bar {
    my ($total, $msg, $width, $off_sym, $on_sym) = @_;
    $msg     ||= '<count> / <total> (<percent> %) <meter>';
    $width   ||= 32;
    $off_sym ||= "-";
    $on_sym  ||= "*";
    my $last_msg = "";
    local $| = 1;

    my $psub = sub {
        my ($count) = @_;
        my $b_done = ($count < 0);
        $b_done and $count = $total;
        my $pcnt = sprintf "%5.1f", 100.0 * $count / $total;
        my $used = $pcnt * $width / 100;
        my $unused = $width - $used;
        my $meter = ($on_sym x $used) . ($off_sym x $unused);
        my $this_msg = $msg;
        $this_msg =~ s/<percent>/$pcnt/g;
        $this_msg =~ s/<count>/$count/g;
        $this_msg =~ s/<total>/$total/g;
        $this_msg =~ s/<meter>/$meter/g;
        my $next_width = $width - length($msg);
        if ($last_msg ne $this_msg) {
            print STDERR "\r$this_msg\e[K";
        }
        $b_done and print STDERR "\n";
    };

    return $psub;
}


# Main program
my $psub = progress_bar(10000, '<meter> File <count> of <total> (<perc
+ent> %)');
for (my $i = 0; $i < 10000; $i++) {
    select(undef,undef,undef,0.01);
    $psub->($i);
}
$psub->(-1);
[download]

total ..... The total number of "things" to count (eg. maximum value)
msg ....... The message to embed within the progress bar.
            (The default is a preformatted message).
            It can contain any of the following tags, which are
            dynamically substituted with the appropriate value:

<count> ..... The current count
<total> ..... The total count
<percent> ... The current percentage complete
<meter> ..... The progress meter itself

width ..... The total width of the progress meter and message (default = 50)
off_sym ... The "off" symbol (default = '-')
on_sym .... The "on" symbol (default = '*')

Then, after creating the closure, you call it with the current count, each time you wish to display the progress meter and message.  It will only update when the progress meter or message changes.

When you're done, you can call it with a negative count to signal 100% completion (and to display a newline).  The main program shows an example of calling the progress meter with a file count that goes from zero to 1000.