Very Computer

however, i am now wanting to get a similar result in the console, but
have the displayed time constantly updating. "real-time", so to speak,
instead of just displaying the time of the program's execution.

is there anyway to get this done, so i can have the time displayed
constantly in a console? if not console, could someone point me in the
right direction to doing this in a GUI, X Windows System interface?

thanks all.

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Before you buy.

 At a minimum you need to know how to perform a destructive backspace
 so that you can do something like:

        Wed 4 Oct 2000 01:11:49    << print time
        Wed 4 Oct 2000 01:11:      << two backspaces
        Wed 4 Oct 2000 01:11:50    << print new digits
        Wed 4 Oct 2000 01:11:5     << one backspace
        Wed 4 Oct 2000 01:11:51    << replace last digit

                ... repeat that last for next 9 seconds,
                then backspace 4 characters and print 01:12:00
                etc.

 That's the basics.  In a shell you could look some for these
 using the tput command.  For example:

        #!/bin/sh
        bs=$(tput cub1)  # Read the tput(1) and terminfo(4) man pages
        x=0

        while [ "$x" -lt 10 ] ; do
                echo -n $x; sleep 1; echo -n "$bs"
                done

 Should work (as a simple example).

One problem with this is that curses will clear the screen upon
initialization, so all one will see is an updating clock
(unless one implements additional stuff, such as a marquee, ad
banner, scrollable text region for reading a book, input form
system, etc.) There are aso some issues regarding keyboard
responsiveness; I'd frankly have to experiment to see what I can
do regarding getch(), if one can get stdscr to return a file
descriptor (or just be crufty and use standard input -- 0 --
in a select() call, which should work fine unless one uses newterm()
instead of initscr()).

'man ncurses' for a starting point, at least on RedHat systems.
It's an interesting, if primitive, environment. :-)

'man select' for details on the select call, which can wait for
a number of sockets and pipes to retrieve data, along with a
timeout specifiable in milliseconds -- perfect for a clock which
needs keyboard input. :-)

Quote:> That's the basics.  In a shell you could look some for these
> using the tput command.  For example:

>    #!/bin/sh
>    bs=$(tput cub1)  # Read the tput(1) and terminfo(4) man pages
>    x=0

>    while [ "$x" -lt 10 ] ; do
>            echo -n $x; sleep 1; echo -n "$bs"
>            done

> Should work (as a simple example).

--

i have decided to use a static time/date display (what i have now), but
just have it easily refresh/redisplay upon a simple command from the
console and redisplay at every opportunity.

i'm saving the shell code and suggestions, since i can see how it will
be very useful when it comes time to expand he program. but at this
time i want to keep the program as complex as my programming skills
are, which is "simple".

if anyone wants, i will notify them when i have a stable, featured
version of the program, which is a clock display, alarm clock, stop
watch/ and countdown timer in one for *nix systems. at first it will
just be console-based, but i will add a GUI to it eventually, once the
features i want in it are there. just email me at

theoretic.com one only after a few days though, since i am just setting
it up now).

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Before you buy.