How can I do the equivalent of tail -f with ls? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Is it possible to follow a command (run repeatedly)? as one would follow a file using tail -f?

I would like to monitor files that are being downloaded to a directory in real time on screen in bash.

Is there an easy way in Linux to do the equivalent of tail -f but on a directory, perhaps using ls?

Answer 1

Use the "watch" command:

watch ls

This will run the "ls" command every 2 seconds.

Answer 2

Check out inotifywait,

e.g to monitor folder abc, you could do:

while inotifywait -e close_write abc; do
   # do `ls` when abc changed
   ls abc
done

Answer 3

watch is definitely the best answer if you've got it. But for completeness, you could simulate something crudely similar with a simple bit of shell-script:

while (true)
do
     date
     ls -lrt | tail -n 10
     sleep 2
     clear
done

Another way could be using diff. This one will also point out if files are removed that used to be present. An advantage is it doesn't clear the terminal, so you can see the complete record of all changes by scrolling up. A disadvantage is that it creates two temporary files to manage the state change reasoning.

ls1="/tmp/listing1.dat"
ls2="/tmp/listing2.dat"
ls -lrt > ${ls1}
ls -lrt > ${ls2}

while (true)
do
     diff ${ls1} ${ls2} | grep '[<>]'
     sleep 2
     cp ${ls2} ${ls1}
     ls -lrt > ${ls2}
done