DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

TOPLESS(1)                  General Commands Manual                 TOPLESS(1)

NAME
       topless - display command output on the whole screen like "top"

SYNOPSIS
       topless [-cwVhv] [-s seconds] [-n number] [-a command] COMMAND

DESCRIPTION
       topless reads various command output, displays it on the whole screen
       (like less), and periodically updates it like top.

       topless can be used with almost every sort of command, but is
       particularly useful when used with the command to monitor the system,
       such as ps, netstat or fstat.  See EXAMPLES below for details.

OPTIONS
       -c  The lines difference from the previous screen update are colorized.
           (default: false)

       -s seconds
           Set the screen update periods to seconds seconds.  If the sleep(1)
           command accepts and honors a non-integer number of seconds, seconds
           can be a non-integer number. (default: 1)

       -n number
           The lines are kept colorized for number times screen update when -c
           is also enabled.  Once a line is colorized, that line becomes blue
           on next screen update, and remains blue until the line returns to
           be original color. (default: 1)

       -a command
           Topless enforce the specified command when COMMAND output gets
           difference from the previous output assumed for alert use, instead
           of -c use for monochrome monitor or others. (default: false)

       -w  Topless will use as many columns as necessary without regard for
           your window size. (default: true)

       -V  Topless gets information header. (default: false)

       -h  Print help message.

       -v  Print version.

KEY COMMAND
       q   quit topless

EXAMPLES
       Display the output of "ps axuww" like top:

           % topless ps axuww

       Same as the above, but the lines difference from the previous screen
       update are colorized.

           % topless -c ps axuww

       Set the screen update periods to 0.1 seconds (suppose the sleep(1)
       command can honor non-integer number of seconds):

           % topless -s 0.1 ps axuww

       Once a line is colorized, that line becomes blue on next screen update,
       and remains blue after the next 10 times update:

           % topless -c -n 10 netstat -a

       COMMAND can be a more complex one, such as the one that contains pipe:

           % topless 'fstat -f /var| sort -k8 -nr'

           % topless -c 'sockstat | egrep "([0-9]{1,3}[.]){3}[0-9]{1,3}"'

       Display the outout of "ps axuww" like top with information header like
       watch(1) of Linux:

           % topless -V ps axuww

       Alert when /var/log/messages gets change:

           % topless -a "tput bl" tail /var/log/messages

       Alert when /var/log/messages gets change running as deamon mode:

           # kldload speaker
           # daemon topless -a "echo AAA > /dev/speaker" tail /var/log/messages > /dev/null

AUTHORS
       Daichi GOTO  <daichi@FreeBSD.org>
       KOMATSU Shinichiro <koma2@lovepeers.org> (documents)

PORTABILITY
       topless can work on various platforms, and has been reported to work on
       the following platforms:

           FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, MacOS X, SuSE 9.1,
           Solaris 10/8 (ksh is required)

       If you find topless does not work on your platform, feel free to send a
       patch to the author.  Your patch is *always* welcome. ;)

CAVEATS
       Special care must be taken when you search about topless, especially
       when you are at your office or with your family, because the search
       results may not be what you expected.

SEE ALSO
       top(1) less(1)

topless                           2005-12-21                        TOPLESS(1)