How to execute/mimick the "watch" command using Emacs features?

How to execute/mimick the "watch" command using Emacs features?

[Rodrigo Morales]

Taking into consideration that =watch= doesn't work properly in =M-x
shell= and =M-x eshell=, I'd like to know what alternatives do you guys
use for having the same behavior of the "watch" command inside Emacs? Do
you open a terminal emulator and execute "watch" there or have a pure
Emacs-approach?

I mainly use the =watch= command to see how the output of a command
changes over time. I run it in a terminal emulator (st). For example,
with the following command I would see how files are created under a
directory.

#+begin_src sh :eval no
watch -n 1 -d "find ~/Experiments | tree --fromfile"
#+end_src

Another example: I sometimes use =watch= to see how tangled files are
being generated. I only do this when working with multiple =noweb=
references in order to confirm that the tangled file doesn't contain any
error. I can mimick the behavior of the =watch= command in this scenario
by toggling =auto-revert-mode= inside Emacs.

#+begin_src sh :eval no
watch -n 1 -d -x cat ~/Experiments/tangled-file.py
#+end_src

However, I haven't found a way to mimick the behavior of "watch" for the
first example shown above. I was thinking of executing the command in
"compilation-mode" and repeatedly execute it but before going with that
approach I wanted to know your opinions.

-- 
Greetings,
Rodrigo Morales.

IRC: rdrg109 (freenode)

Re: How to execute/mimick the "watch" command using Emacs features?

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

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() Rodrigo Morales <moralesrodrigo1100@gmail.com>
() Fri, 05 Feb 2021 16:09:58 -0500

   I was thinking of executing the command in "compilation-mode"
   and repeatedly execute it but before going with that approach
   I wanted to know your opinions.

Personally, i use ‘M-x watch’ from watch.el:
https://www.gnuvola.org/software/personal-elisp/dist/lisp/bofh/watch.el

NB: It's not asynchronous.

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen -----------------------------------------------
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     (`(technical ,ml) (correctp ml))
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Re: How to execute/mimick the "watch" command using Emacs features?

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

Rodrigo Morales wrote:

> Taking into consideration that =watch= doesn't work properly
> in =M-x shell= and =M-x eshell=, I'd like to know what
> alternatives do you guys use for having the same behavior of
> the "watch" command inside Emacs? Do you open a terminal
> emulator and execute "watch" there or have a pure
> Emacs-approach?

You need a "fully-featured" terminal emulator for this, e.g.
vterm which is written in C and loaded as a dynamic module.
You can get it from MELPA or from

  https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm

But if you are used to `shell' tho you will have some problems
in the beginning...

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: How to execute/mimick the "watch" command using Emacs features?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Rodrigo Morales <moralesrodrigo1100@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2021 16:09:58 -0500
> 
> Taking into consideration that =watch= doesn't work properly in =M-x
> shell= and =M-x eshell=, I'd like to know what alternatives do you guys
> use for having the same behavior of the "watch" command inside Emacs? Do
> you open a terminal emulator and execute "watch" there or have a pure
> Emacs-approach?

You could try writing a command based on the facilities in
filenotify.el, which is part of Emacs.

Re: How to execute/mimick the "watch" command using Emacs features?

[Leo Butler]

Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
<help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:

> Rodrigo Morales wrote:
>
>> Taking into consideration that =watch= doesn't work properly
>> in =M-x shell= and =M-x eshell=, I'd like to know what
>> alternatives do you guys use for having the same behavior of
>> the "watch" command inside Emacs? Do you open a terminal
>> emulator and execute "watch" there or have a pure
>> Emacs-approach?
>
> You need a "fully-featured" terminal emulator for this, e.g.
> vterm which is written in C and loaded as a dynamic module.
> You can get it from MELPA or from
>
>   https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm
>
> But if you are used to `shell' tho you will have some problems
> in the beginning...

M-x term

That works for me and is a part of GNU emacs.

Leo

Re: How to execute/mimick the "watch" command using Emacs features?

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

Leo Butler wrote:

>> You need a "fully-featured" terminal emulator for this,
>> e.g. vterm which is written in C and loaded as a dynamic
>> module. You can get it from MELPA or from
>>
>>   https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm
>>
>> But if you are used to `shell' tho you will have some problems
>> in the beginning...
>
> M-x term
>
> That works for me and is a part of GNU emacs.

That's true! Good.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal