LinuxQuestions.org - Progress Bar

Here are two hacks at what you are looking for:

The first will call the process (in my test case a sleep) and print # marks every second until the process ends. This bar really only gives the user a hint that something is still working. He/she has no clue how long it will take.

Code:

#!/bin/sh



sleep 8&  # put the calling processes here

PROCPID=$!



while [ 1 ]; do

  sleep 1

  ps -ef | grep $PROCPID | grep -vq grep

  if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then

      break;

  else

      echo -n "#"

  fi

done

This second attempt will display hash marks from 0% to 100%. The trick here it to know about how long the process will take. If it consistently takes about 10 seconds then add it to the AVG_TIME var. If you have no clue how long it will take then you probably should use the script above.

Code:

#!/bin/sh



COUNT=0

AVG_TIME=5



STEP=`expr 50 / $AVG_TIME`

echo    "          |0%--------------------50%---------------------100%|"

echo -n "Progress:  "

while [ $COUNT -lt $AVG_TIME ]; do

  sleep 1

  HASH=0

  while [ $HASH -lt $STEP ]; do

      echo -n "#"  

      HASH=`expr 1 + $HASH`

  done

  COUNT=`expr 1 + $COUNT`

done