If you want something simpler than a status bar, on a text based STDOUT, I've occasionally used something like this (pseudocode)

$length = 1;
while (doing operation)
{
  for (1..$length){print "\b"}
  print $numberOfRecords;
  $length = length($numberOfRecords);
}
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In other words, for each iteration of your loop, print the number of \b's equal to the string length of your last status message, then print your status message again. That way you get a constantly changing status message on STDOUT, rather than a scrolling '1 records\n','2 records\n' etc

I hope that makes sense!