Monitor the progress of data through a pipe.
Syntax
pv [OPTION] [FILE]...
pv [-h|-V]
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 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 thatdata 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 previous 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.
-r, --rate
Turn the rate counter on. This will display the current rate of data transfer.
-b, --bytes
Turn the total byte counter on. This will display the total amount of data transferred so far.
-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.
-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.
-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.
-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.
-i SEC, --interval SEC
Wait SEC seconds between updates. The default is to update every second.
Note that this can be a decimal such as 0.1.
-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 kilobytes (*1024), megabytes, 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
kilobytes (*1024), megabytes, and so on. The default buffer size is the block size of the input file’s
filesystem multiplied by 32 (512kb max), or 400kb if the block size cannot be determined.
-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
321k instead of 123k. Note that some options cannot be changed while running, such as -c, -l, and -f.
General Options
-h, --help
Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
-V, --version
Print version information on standard output and exit successfully.
pv allows a user to see 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
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.
32 A signal was caught that caused an early exit.
64 Memory allocation failed. A zero exit status indicates no problems.
“Put that in your pipe and smoke it” ~ Proverb
cat - Concatenate and print (display) the content of files.