[KLUG Members] Best command to monitor file size change over time?

[Adam Tauno Williams]

>>If your going to watch for the *arrival* of a file on an FTP server I think you
>>would be much better off to use a log monitor rather than trying to timer-watch
>>the actual file.  Having done things like this I know that there are 6.48*10^25
>>possible outer-rim occurances that came make a timer-watcher confused:  What if
>>the file transfer starts but doesn't complete?  What if the sent file is the
>>exact same size as the previously sent file? etc....
>We have a log monitor (Autosys on a Sun box).   
>It has a process called file watcher that watches for file(s).  It monitors when it is safe
>that this file has arrived and is done downloading based on whatever set conditions.  
>The real intention here is morbid curiosity.  Does Unix have a command loaded with
>options that could substitute for the function of a log monitor?  

You could use tail -f and grep to monitor the logs.  If you told grep to
get it's regular expressions from a file (man grep) you would be very
close to having a log monitor. But no I do not think there is "a
command" that will really substitute for a log monitor,  there are
however several great open source log monitors.

>Indeed a script would be handy but it could entail scaling, maintenance 
>problems, and 6.48*10^25 possible outer-rim occurances.  

Yep,  scripts are good for what scripts do.  Don't turn them into
infrastructure.