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PV(1) User Manuals PV(1) NAME pv - monitor the progress of data through a pipe SYNOPSIS pv [OPTION] [FILE]... pv [-h|-V] DESCRIPTION pv shows the progress of data through a pipeline by giving information such as time elapsed, percentage completed (with progress bar), current throughput rate, total data transferred, and ETA. To use it, insert it in a pipeline between two processes, with the appropriate options. Its standard input will be passed through to its standard output and progress will be shown on standard error. pv will copy each supplied FILE in turn to standard output (- means standard input), or if no FILEs are specified just standard input is copied. This is the same behaviour as cat(1). A simple example to watch how quickly a file is transferred using nc(1): pv file | nc -w 1 somewhere.com 3000 A similar example, transferring a file from another process and passing the expected size to pv: cat file | pv -s 12345 | nc -w 1 somewhere.com 3000 A more complicated example using numeric output to feed into the dialog(1) program for a full-screen progress display: (tar cf - . \ | pv -n -s $(du -sb . | awk '{print $1}') \ | gzip -9 > out.tgz) 2>&1 \ | dialog --gauge 'Progress' 7 70 Taking an image of a disk, skipping errors: pv -EE /dev/your/disk/device > disk-image.img Writing an image back to a disk: pv disk-image.img > /dev/your/disk/device Zeroing a disk: pv < /dev/zero > /dev/your/disk/device Note that if the input size cannot be calculated, and the output is a block device, then the size of the block device will be used and pv will automatically stop at that size as if -S had been given. (Linux only): Watching file descriptor 3 opened by another process OPTIONS pv takes many options, which are divided into display switches, output modifiers, and general options. DISPLAY SWITCHES If no display switches are specified, pv behaves as if -p, -t, -e, -r, and -b had been given (i.e. everything except average rate is switched on). Otherwise, only those display types that are explicitly switched on will be shown. -p, --progress Turn the progress bar on. If standard input is not a file and no size was given (with the -s modifier), the progress bar cannot indicate how close to completion the transfer is, so it will just move left and right to indicate that data is moving. -t, --timer Turn the timer on. This will display the total elapsed time that pv has been running for. -e, --eta Turn the ETA timer on. This will attempt to guess, based on current transfer rates and the total data size, how long it will be before completion. This option will have no effect if the total data size cannot be determined. -I, --fineta Turn the ETA timer on, but display the estimated local time of arrival instead of time left. When the estimated time is more than 6 hours in the future, the date is shown as well. -r, --rate Turn the rate counter on. This will display the current rate of data transfer. -a, --average-rate Turn the average rate counter on. This will display the current average rate of data transfer (default: last 30s, see --average- rate-window). -b, --bytes Turn the total byte counter on. This will display the total amount of data transferred so far. -8, --bits Display the total bits instead of the total bytes. The output suffix will be "b" instead of "B". -T, --buffer-percent Turn on the transfer buffer percentage display. This will show the percentage of the transfer buffer in use - but see the caveat under %T in the FORMATTING section below. Implies -C. -A, --last-written NUM -n, --numeric Numeric output. Instead of giving a visual indication of progress, pv will give an integer percentage, one per line, on standard error, suitable for piping (via convoluted redirection) into dialog(1). Note that -f is not required if -n is being used. Note that if --numeric is in use, then adding --bytes will cause the number of bytes processed so far to be output instead of a percentage; if --line-mode is also in use, then instead of bytes or a percentage, the number of lines so far is output. And finally, if --timer is also in use, then each output line is prefixed with the elapsed time so far, as a decimal number of seconds. -q, --quiet No output. Useful if the -L option is being used on its own to just limit the transfer rate of a pipe. OUTPUT MODIFIERS -W, --wait Wait until the first byte has been transferred before showing any progress information or calculating any ETAs. Useful if the program you are piping to or from requires extra information before it starts, eg piping data into gpg(1) or mcrypt(1) which require a passphrase before data can be processed. -D, --delay-start SEC Wait until SEC seconds have passed before showing any progress information, for example in a script where you only want to show a progress bar if it starts taking a long time. Note that this can be a decimal such as 0.5. -s SIZE, --size SIZE Assume the total amount of data to be transferred is SIZE bytes when calculating percentages and ETAs. The same suffixes of "k", "m" etc can be used as with -L. If SIZE starts with @, the size of file whose name follows the @ will be used. Note that --size has no effect if used with -d PID to watch all file descriptors of a process, but will work with -d PID:FD. -l, --line-mode Instead of counting bytes, count lines (newline characters). The progress bar will only move when a new line is found, and the value passed to the -s option will be interpreted as a line count. Note that file sizes are not automatically calculated when this option is used, to avoid having to read all files twice. -0, --null -m SEC, --average-rate-window SEC Compute current average rate over a SEC seconds window for average rate and ETA calculations (default 30s). -w WIDTH, --width WIDTH Assume the terminal is WIDTH characters wide, instead of trying to work it out (or assuming 80 if it cannot be guessed). -H HEIGHT, --height HEIGHT Assume the terminal is HEIGHT rows high, instead of trying to work it out (or assuming 25 if it cannot be guessed). -N NAME, --name NAME Prefix the output information with NAME. Useful in conjunction with -c if you have a complicated pipeline and you want to be able to tell different parts of it apart. -f, --force Force output. Normally, pv will not output any visual display if standard error is not a terminal. This option forces it to do so. -c, --cursor Use cursor positioning escape sequences instead of just using carriage returns. This is useful in conjunction with -N (name) if you are using multiple pv invocations in a single, long, pipeline. DATA TRANSFER MODIFIERS -L RATE, --rate-limit RATE Limit the transfer to a maximum of RATE bytes per second. A suffix of "K", "M", "G", or "T" can be added to denote kibibytes (*1024), mebibytes, and so on. -B BYTES, --buffer-size BYTES Use a transfer buffer size of BYTES bytes. A suffix of "K", "M", "G", or "T" can be added to denote kibibytes (*1024), mebibytes, and so on. The default buffer size is the block size of the input file's filesystem multiplied by 32 (512KiB max), or 400KiB if the block size cannot be determined. This can be useful on platforms like MacOS which perform better in pipelines with specific buffer sizes such as 1024. Implies -C. -C, --no-splice Never use splice(2), even if it would normally be possible. The splice(2) system call is a more efficient way of transferring data from or to a pipe than regular read(2) and write(2), but means that the transfer buffer may not be used. This prevents -A and -T from working, and makes -B redundant, so using -A, -T, or -B automatically switches on -C. Switching on -C results in a small loss of transfer efficiency. (This option has no effect on systems where splice(2) is unavailable). -E, --skip-errors Ignore read errors by attempting to skip past the offending sections. The corresponding parts of the output will be null bytes. At first only a few bytes will be skipped, but if there -S, --stop-at-size If a size was specified with -s, stop transferring data once that many bytes have been written, instead of continuing to the end of input. -d PID[:FD], --watchfd PID[:FD] Instead of transferring data, watch file descriptor FD of process PID, and show its progress. The pv process will exit when FD either changes to a different file, changes read/write mode, or is closed; other data transfer modifiers - and remote control - may not be used with this option. If only a PID is specified, then that process will be watched, and all regular files and block devices it opens will be shown with a progress bar. The pv process will exit when process PID exits. -R PID, --remote PID If PID is an instance of pv that is already running, -R PID will cause that instance to act as though it had been given this instance's command line instead. For example, if pv -L 123K is running with process ID 9876, then running pv -R 9876 -L 321K will cause it to start using a rate limit of 321KiB instead of 123KiB. Note that some options cannot be changed while running, such as -c, -l, -f, -D, -E, and -S. GENERAL OPTIONS -P FILE, --pidfile FILE Save the process ID of pv in FILE. The file will be truncated if it already exists, and will be removed when pv exits. While pv is running, it will contain a single number - the process ID of pv - followed by a newline. -h, --help Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully. -V, --version Print version information on standard output and exit successfully. FORMATTING If the -F option is given, then the output format is determined by the given format string. Within that string, the following sequences can be used: %p Progress bar. Expands to fill the remaining space. Should only be specified once. Equivalent to -p. %t Elapsed time. Equivalent to -t. %e ETA as time remaining. Equivalent to -e. %I ETA as local time of completion. Equivalent to -I. %T Percentage of the transfer buffer in use. Equivalent to -T. Shows "{----}" if the transfer is being done with splice(2), since splicing to or from pipes does not use the buffer. %nA Show the last n bytes written (e.g. %16A for the last 16 bytes). Shows only dots if the transfer is being done with splice(2), since splicing to or from pipes does not use the buffer. %N Name prefix given by -N. Padded to 9 characters with spaces, and suffixed with :. %% A single %. The format string equivalent of turning on all display switches is `%N %b %T %t %r %a %p %e'. COMMON SWITCHES Some suggested common switch combinations: pv -ptebar Show a progress bar, elapsed time, estimated completion time, byte counter, average rate, and current rate. pv -betlap Show a progress bar, elapsed time, estimated completion time, line counter, and average rate, counting lines instead of bytes. pv -t Show only the elapsed time - useful as a simple timer, e.g. sleep 10m | pv -t. pv -pterb The default behaviour: progress bar, elapsed time, estimated completion time, current rate, and byte counter. On MacOS, it may be useful to specify -B 1024 in a pipeline, as this may improve performance. EXIT STATUS An exit status of 1 indicates a problem with the -R or -P options. Any other exit status is a bitmask of the following: 2 One or more files could not be accessed, stat(2)ed, or opened. 4 An input file was the same as the output file. 8 Internal error with closing a file or moving to the next file. 16 There was an error while transferring data from one or more input files. AUTHOR Written by Andrew Wood, with patches submitted by various other people. Please see the package's ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS file for a complete list of contributors. KNOWN PROBLEMS The following problems are known to exist in pv: * In some versions of bash(1) and zsh(1), the construct <(pv filename) will not output any progress to the terminal when run from an interactive shell, due to the subprocess being run in a separate process group from the one that owns the terminal. In these cases, use --force. * The -c option does not work properly on Cygwin without cygserver running, if started near the bottom of the screen (IPC is needed to handle the terminal scrolling). To fix this, start cygserver before using pv -c. * The -R option is not available on Cygwin without cygserver running (SYSV IPC is needed). To fix this, start cygserver before running the instance of pv you want, at runtime, to change the parameters of. If you find any other problems, please report them. REPORTING BUGS Report bugs in pv to pv@ivarch.com or use the contact form linked from the pv home page: <http://www.ivarch.com/programs/pv.shtml> SEE ALSO cat(1), dialog(1), splice(2) LICENSE This is free software, distributed under the ARTISTIC 2.0 license. Linux July 2023 PV(1)