lavermil has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello,

I have the desire to print a multi-line status while a script is running. The script for example is a simple backup script.

My desire is to have something similar the following. 

Script Started
 Start Checking/collecting info
  Please wait...
 Finished checking/collecting info.
 Backup Process Starting
 /etc/hosts
 <-- 10% (1/10) Complete -->

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The line "/etc/hosts" would update with the different files/etc that is getting backed up but on the same line.
The line "<-- 10% (1/10) Complete -->" would be updated accordingly at the same time the previous line "/etc/hosts" is updated.

A single line is rather simple to do if I use the code below. 

print "\e[K Something\r";

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The problem I have here is I can't seem to get this to work without generating \n.
Any help would be greatly appreaciated.

TIA,
Lance

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Multi-line Status while script is running
by wind (Priest) on Mar 24, 2011 at 00:13 UTC

    I'm not positive, but I believe you'll need a cpan module like Curses

    Of course the easiest method is just to combine your dynamic text to a single line so that you can stick to just using \r

    my @dirs = map {chomp; $_} <DATA>;

my $i = 0;
my $lastlen = 0;

local $| = 1;

for my $dir (@dirs) {
    $i++;

    my $output = "<-- " . int($i / @dirs * 100) . " ($i/" . @dirs . ")
+ complete, $dir -->";
    substr($output, 60) = '' if length $output > 60; # Truncate

    
    print "\r$output";

    # Cover longer lines
    my $len = length $output;
    print ' ' x ($lastlen - $len) if $lastlen > $len;
    $lastlen = $len;
    
    sleep 1;
}

__DATA__
/etc/hosts
/foo/bar
/boo/bazinga
/baz
/foo/bin
/foo/bin2
/foo/bin3
/foo/bin4
/foo/z
/zar

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[reply]
[d/l]
      I have similar setup right now and when you get long lines like "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0" plus the "<-- 90 (9/10) complete -->" it turn into a line that is too large for some terms and looks bad.

      Using "\e[K" seems to be better with my experience since there is no need to figure out the length of the previous output. 

      my @dirs = map {chomp; $_} <DATA>;

local $| = 1;
my $i = 0;

for my $dir (@dirs) {
    $i++;
    my $output = int($i / @dirs * 100) . "% ($i/" . @dirs . ")";
    print "\e[K<--  $output complete, $dir -->\r";
    sleep 1;
}
print "\n";

      [download]
      The thing I think I haven't figured out with ncurses/term::cap/term::screen/etc is that I don't know how to determine the current line/row of the screen I am currently on. I can put text anyplace any want easily but can't get seem to understand how to determine the current line/row.

      Am I just missing the existing function to do that?

[reply]
[d/l]

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