Continually display contents of text file on desktop?

[solo2500]

I have a text file that gets updated every few minutes. Is there a way to continuously view the contents without having to close and open the file all the time? I suppose one could write a small scrip and have it run continuosly... but it seems like there should be a more elegant way?

[ElEscalador]

I guess I have to ask what does the updating of said file? If that's a local program I'd probably use that program to output whatever it is to make it easier to avoid trying to read and write at the same time. That said I'm kind of a caveman and would write a c++ (python probably easier but I don't speak python) That would open and output the file contents to an ugly but simple console window.

[DirkS]

I have a text file that gets updated every few minutes. Is there a way to continuously view the contents without having to close and open the file all the time? I suppose one could write a small scrip and have it run continuosly... but it seems like there should be a more elegant way?

both

Code: Select all

less +F filename
tail -f filename

will do that

[solo2500]

I have a text file that gets updated every few minutes. Is there a way to continuously view the contents without having to close and open the file all the time? I suppose one could write a small scrip and have it run continuosly... but it seems like there should be a more elegant way?

both

Code: Select all

less +S filename
tail -f filename

will do that

Thanks for the reply but neither one of these seem to "update" whenever the file gets changed?

[DirkS]

Thanks for the reply but neither one of these seem to "update" whenever the file gets changed?

Ah... typo alert. It's 'less +F'

[solo2500]

PROBLEM SOLVED... see this thread https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1 ... -contents

[scruss]

Thanks for the reply but neither one of these seem to "update" whenever the file gets changed?

How is your file changing? tail -f assumes you are appending data to a log file, so will only show the changed lines at the end. If the whole file changes, you might not see the changes correctly.

I don't know of any off-the-shelf program that does this automatically. There are things you might be able to do with the watch and inotify commands … and I see you found one!

[rpdom]

Thanks for the reply but neither one of these seem to "update" whenever the file gets changed?

How is your file changing? tail -f assumes you are appending data to a log file, so will only show the changed lines at the end. If the whole file changes, you might not see the changes correctly.

tail --follow works like tail -f, but realises if the file changes completely and tracks those changes too.

[scruss]

tail --follow and tail -f are exact synonyms: check the manual and info page.

[rpdom]

tail --follow and tail -f are exact synonyms: check the manual and info page.

Hmm, odd. I've had differing results with the two options.