Watch command for Git Bash

watch.sh

#!/bin/bash
ARGS="${@}"
clear; 
while(true); do 
  OUTPUT=`$ARGS`
  clear 
  echo -e "${OUTPUT[@]}"
done

@fabiante, yes

I'd add sleep 1 after echo, so the console does not flicker.

thanks did the trick!

I found this to be slightly better at getting rid of most of the flicker:

#!/bin/bash
ARGS="${@}"
clear;
while(true); do
  clear
  OUTPUT=`$ARGS`
  echo -e "${OUTPUT[@]}"
  sleep 1
done

@mchandschuh for Windows users, in which folder should I paste the .sh script?

@saadzimat430 C:\Users\{user}\.bashrc

I tweaked @mchandschuh version a little more by executing the command before clearing the screen. Espacially for long-running commands there is no more flickering for me.

#!/bin/bash
ARGS="${@}"
clear;
while(true); do
  OUTPUT=`$ARGS`
  clear
  echo -e "${OUTPUT[@]}"
  sleep 1
done

Thanks for this and all the improvements!

I made a version that is nearly flicker-less. It clears the previous 25 lines. Any lines of output beyond 25 will scroll.

#!/bin/bash
ARGS="${@}"
clear;
while(true); do
  OUTPUT=`$ARGS`
  for i in {1..25}; do
    printf '\e[1A\e[K'
  done

  echo -e "${OUTPUT[@]}"
  sleep 1
done

mingw64 does not have watch so I found this gist. I tried to look at the esacpe sequence of original watch with strace with strace -f watch echo test. Found this escape sequence: write(1, "\33[1;75H", 7�[1;75H) = 7

#!/usr/bin/bash
interval=2
if [ "$1" = "-n" ]; then # allow -n {interval} at start 
  interval=$2
  shift 2
fi
clear
while true; do
   printf "%b\n\n" "\033[1;1HEvery $interval s:$*\033[1;75H$(hostname): $(date)"
   "$@"
   sleep "$interval" 
done

you can add it as a function to ~/.bash_aliases

watch () {
  ARGS="${@}"
  clear;
  while(true); do
    clear
    OUTPUT=`$ARGS`
    echo -e "${OUTPUT[@]}"
    sleep 1
  done
}

And I added some additional information to the watch function to make it look like it does in native linux -

watch () {
  ARGS="${@}"
  clear;
  while(true); do
    OUTPUT=`$ARGS`
    clear
    echo -e "Every 1.0s: $ARGS"
    echo ""
    echo -e "${OUTPUT[@]}"
    sleep 1
  done
}

And I added some additional information to the watch function to make it look like it does in native linux -

watch () {
  ARGS="${@}"
  clear;
  while(true); do
    OUTPUT=`$ARGS`
    clear
    echo -e "Every 1.0s: $ARGS"
    echo ""
    echo -e "${OUTPUT[@]}"
    sleep 1
  done
}

this is awesome!!!