function linestodots() { while read f ; do builtin echo -n . ; done ; }
ls | linestodots ......................... and here is a version which limits the number of dots printed on one line. function linestodots() { local n=0; local maxcols=79; while read f ; do let n++; if [ $n -le $maxcols ] ; then builtin echo -n . ; else echo n=0 fi done if [ $n -gt 0 ] ; then echo fi } this just uses the stdout lines as input, not stderr. I do not believe it is possible to redirect just stderr to a pipe except by using 2>&1 and then redirecing stdout using >. either way you wouldn't get the stdout output on the screen.'
you could pipe both stdin and stout through and then modify the function to only do dots for lines which match those that are the file names.
Comment
function linestodots() { while read f ; do builtin echo -n . ; done ; }
ls | linestodots
.........................
and here is a version which limits the number of dots printed on one line.
function linestodots()
{
local n=0;
local maxcols=79;
while read f ; do
let n++;
if [ $n -le $maxcols ] ; then
builtin echo -n . ;
else
echo
n=0
fi
done
if [ $n -gt 0 ] ; then
echo
fi
}
this just uses the stdout lines as input, not stderr.
I do not believe it is possible to redirect just stderr to a pipe except by
using 2>&1 and then redirecing stdout using >.
either way you wouldn't get the stdout
output on the screen.'
you could pipe both stdin and stout through and then modify the function to only do dots for lines which match those that are the file names.