Progress indicator

[mirod]

I often run scripts that have to run for a while and that do not output anything. So I like to see how they are doing, if they are just sitting there waiting for something to happen, or maybe stuck in an infinite loop.

So I use this subroutine to display an indicator of how many times I have been through my main loop on STDOUT.

Its used this way:

  while(...)
    { # whatever you have to do
      progress();
    }

As I use in various situations the main loop can be run any time from a few hundred to several tens of thousand times, so you can pass a parameter or change the DEFAULT_STEP constant to display a dot for every n loops. After 10 dots a space is printed, and after 50 a new line (those values can also be changed).

One last thing: if you want to see the dots displayed as soon as they are generated don't forget to unbuffer the output, for example with $|=1;

Oh and if the features of this progress indicator are not what you are looking for, here is a list of previous nodes on that subject:

A whirleygig for a progress indicator for scripts
• File copy progress.
• Spinning progress bar.
• progress bars

{ use constant DEFAULT_STEP => 100; # a DOT is printed every DEFAULT_S
+TEP call
  use constant LINE         => 50;  # nb of DOT per line      
  use constant BLOCK        => 10;  # a SPACE is printed after BLOCK D
+OTs
  use constant DOT          => '.'; # probably no need to change this
  use constant SPACE        => ' '; # probably no need to change this
  my( $i, $j);
  sub progress
    { my $step= shift || DEFAULT_STEP;
      $i++;
      if( $i == $step)
        { $i=0;
          print STDOUT DOT;
          $j++;
          unless( $j % BLOCK)
            { print STDOUT SPACE;
              if( $j == LINE)
                { $j=0;
                  print STDOUT "\n";
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

[RedDog]

And if you are using Tk, the Tk::ProgressBar module works well to.

RedDog