NAME
watch – periodically execute a command and display its output
SYNOPSIS
watch [-celwx] [-s seconds] command [arg ...]
DESCRIPTION
The watch utility periodically executes and displays the output of command. Differences between successive runs can be highlighted.
The options are as follows:
- -c
-
Highlight changed characters.
- -e
-
Pause updating if command exits with a non-zero exit code.
- -l
-
Highlight changed lines.
- -s seconds
-
Set the interval between updates to seconds. The default is 1 second.
- -w
-
Highlight changed words.
- -x
-
Pass command to execl(3) instead of sh -c, for different quoting and shell escaping behaviour.
INTERACTIVE COMMANDS
Certain characters cause immediate action by watch. These are:
- ⟨Space⟩
-
Run command again.
- ⟨Page Down⟩
-
Scroll down a screenful.
- ⟨Page Up⟩
-
Scroll up a screenful.
- [ | ⟨left arrow⟩
-
Scroll left by one column.
- ] | ⟨right arrow⟩
-
Scroll right by one column.
- c
-
Highlight changed characters.
- e
-
Pause command executions if the command exits with a non-zero exit code.
- g
-
Scroll to top.
- H
-
Scroll left half a screen.
- h | ?
-
Display a summary of the commands (help screen).
- J
-
Scroll down half a screen.
- j | ⟨down arrow⟩
-
Scroll down one line.
- K
-
Scroll up half a screen.
- k | ⟨up arrow⟩
-
Scroll up one line.
- L
-
Scroll right half a screen.
- l
-
Highlight changed lines.
- r
-
Display information about resource utilization.
- s
-
Change the update interval.
- p
-
Pause or resume command executions. ⟨Space⟩ can be used while paused.
- w
-
Highlight changed words.
- q
-
Quit watch.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
watch was first published in 1991 and has been available since OpenBSD 7.8.
AUTHORS
Takuya Sato, Kazumasa Utashiro, YASUOKA Masahiko ⟨[email protected]⟩, and Job Snijders ⟨[email protected]⟩.