watchcmd

Watchcmd (cli tool)

watchcmd, an enhanced watch command.

Install globally

npm i -g watchcmd

Run it with any command

You can run command, string of commands, it will repeatedly report the result on the shell screen. e.g:

# Run istats every 2 seconds 
watchcmd -t 2000 "istats"
 
# Append date after command output 
watchcmd "istats; echo; date"

Demo

Commands used in this demo:

watchcmd istats
watchcmd "istats; echo; date"
watchcmd -t 2000 "istats; echo; date"
watchcmd -t 200 "istats; echo; date"
watchcmd "ping -c 1 www.github.com"
watchcmd "ping -c 1 www.github.com; echo; date"

Help

➜  ~ watchcmd -h

  Usage: watchcmd [options] <cmd>

  Options:

    -V, --version       output the version number
    -t, --wait [value]  Wait for milliseconds
    -c, --cmd <value>   The command
    -h, --help          output usage information

Note:

• If your command has arguments, you will need to wrap them in quotation marks, like this:

  watchcmd "ping -c 1 www.github.com"

Why watchcmd

Watchcmd vs watch

Watchcmd's command can be further simplified as watchcmd istats, if you want it to be updated once per second.

NOTE: In some system, you can pass --color to watch to resolve this color commands issue.

Watchcmd vs while sleep...

While

while sleep 1; do clear; istats; done

is a workable solution, but flicking. The ultimate while solution would be (it's fine to use it):

while sleep 1; do istats > /tmp/istats_file; date >> /tmp/istats_file; clear; cat /tmp/istats_file; done

But hey, isn't it complicated?

Watchcmd isn't that complicated, it's just a single JavaScript file that does all the hard work for you.

Roadmap

• Add an argument to monitor content on screen and send notifications to user.
• Skip execution while the command is executing.