What is the Windows analog of the Linux watch command?

while(1) { clear; Command ;sleep 3; }

Some improvements on the excellent PS module written by johnrizzo1 (see here)

• Renamed function to be in line with Powershell naming convention (as suggested by duct_tape_coder)
• Moved interval to second argument, so it's optional; reduced default to 2 seconds
• Fetch output of Invoke first, only then refresh the screen. This avoids the screen going blank while the command executes

function Watch-Command {
    [CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$True,ConfirmImpact='High')]
    param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$True,
                   ValueFromPipeline=$True,
                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$True)]
        [string]$command,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$False,
                   ValueFromPipeline=$True,
                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$True)]
        [int]$interval = 2
    )
    process {
        $cmd = [scriptblock]::Create($command);
        While($True) {
            $output = $cmd.Invoke();
            cls;
            Write-Host "Command: " $command;
            Write-Host ($output | Out-String);
            sleep $interval;
        }
    }
}

I was in a hurry.... I used one suggestion and changed it a little to work for me:

for /l %g in () do @( echo test & timeout /t 2 )

I changed it to:

for /l %g in () do @( test.bat & timeout /t 2 )

And I created the test.bat file with the command line. In my case, it was:

net group /domain

I found that the echo command just printed out to the screen but did not execute the command

PowerShell-Watch

Code Repository

A generic Windows command oneliner to accomplish this:

for /l %g in () do @( echo test & timeout /t 2 )

Replace "echo test" with the command you wish to run repeatedly.

It's a PowerShell one liner:

while ($true) { <your command here> | Out-Host; Sleep 5; Clear }

what @harrymc said except with sleep watch.bat

@ECHO OFF
:loop
  %*
  sleep 5
goto loop

./watch.bat npm run test

npm run test every 5 sec

I created a watch command for windows called llwatch.

The code is both on my website landenlabs.com

and also on GitHub

You may need to use x64 to watch x64 programs and x32 for the others. Not sure how picky windows is.

I wrote this little PowerShell module to do what you were looking for. Just put it in

C:Users[username]DocumentsWindowsPowerShellModulesWatch

and run import-module watch in PowerShell.

---

# ---- BEGIN SCRIPT
# Author:       John Rizzo
# Created:      06/12/2014
# Last Updated: 06/12/2014
# Website:      http://www.johnrizzo.net

function Watch {
    [CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$True,ConfirmImpact='High')]
    param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$False,
                   ValueFromPipeline=$True,
                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$True)]
        [int]$interval = 10,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$True,
                   ValueFromPipeline=$True,
                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$True)]
        [string]$command
    )
    process {
        $cmd = [scriptblock]::Create($command);
        While($True) {
            cls;
            Write-Host "Command: " $command;
            $cmd.Invoke();
            sleep $interval;
        }
    }
}

Export-ModuleMember -function Watch

# --- END SCRIPT

This is how I would do it in PowerShell:

while(1){ netstat -an|grep 1920;start-sleep -seconds 2;clear }

The condition while(1) is equivalent to while true, looping indefinitely.

I had the same issue when needing to check the file size of a file actively being worked on by another process. I ended up cloning the functionality of watch on Windows. The compiled exe as well as the source is available at the site.

watch for Windows

Powershell has the "while" command. You can use it like in Linux:

while (1) {your_command; sleep 5}

Linux version:

while true; do your_command; sleep5; done

Others:

while ($true) {netstat -an | findstr 23560; sleep 5; date}

You can also make up a delay using the PING command, for example:

@echo off
:loop
  cls
  dir c:temp
  REM 5000mS (5 sec) delay...
  ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 >NUL
goto loop

Write your own. Let's say file watch.bat contains :

@ECHO OFF
:loop
  cls
  %*
  timeout /t 5 > NUL
goto loop

and call it via, for example:

watch echo test

will echo test every 5 seconds.