Provided by: pv_1.8.5-2build1_amd64 
NAME
pv - monitor the progress of data through a pipe
SYNOPSIS
pv [OPTION] [FILE]...
pv [-h|-V]
DESCRIPTION
pv shows 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
Taking an image of a disk, skipping errors:
pv -EE /dev/your/disk/device > disk-image.img
Writing an image back to a disk:
pv disk-image.img > /dev/your/disk/device
Zeroing a disk:
pv < /dev/zero > /dev/your/disk/device
Note that if the input size cannot be calculated, and the output is a block device, then the size of the
block device will be used and pv will automatically stop at that size as if -S had been given.
(Linux only): Watching file descriptor 3 opened by another process 1234:
pv -d 1234:3
(Linux only): Watching all file descriptors used by process 1234:
pv -d 1234
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 except average rate is switched on). Otherwise, only those display types that are explicitly
switched on will be shown.
-p, --progress
Turn the progress bar on. If any inputs are not files, or are unreadable, and no size was
explicitly 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 that data 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 current 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.
-I, --fineta
Turn the ETA timer on, but display the estimated local time of arrival instead of time left. When
the estimated time is more than 6 hours in the future, the date is shown as well.
-r, --rate
Turn the rate counter on. This will display the current rate of data transfer.
-a, --average-rate
Turn the average rate counter on. This will display the current average rate of data transfer
(default: last 30s, see -m).
-b, --bytes
Turn the total byte counter on. This will display the total amount of data transferred so far.
-8, --bits
Display the total bits instead of the total bytes. The output suffix will be "b" instead of "B".
-T, --buffer-percent
Turn on the transfer buffer percentage display. This will show the percentage of the transfer
buffer in use - but see the caveat under %T in the FORMATTING section below. Implies -C.
-A NUM, --last-written NUM
Show the last NUM bytes written - but see the caveat under %nA in the FORMATTING section below.
Implies -C.
-F FORMAT, --format FORMAT
Ignore the options -p, -t, -e, -r, -a, -b, -T, and -A, and instead use the format string FORMAT to
determine the output format. See the FORMATTING section below.
-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.
Note that if --numeric is in use, then adding --bytes will cause the number of bytes processed so
far to be output instead of a percentage; if --line-mode is also in use as well as --bytes and
--numeric, then instead of bytes or a percentage, the number of lines so far is output. And
finally, if --timer is added to --numeric, then each output line is prefixed with the elapsed time
so far, as a decimal number of seconds.
-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.
-D SEC, --delay-start SEC
Wait until SEC seconds have passed before showing any progress information, for example in a
script where you only want to show a progress bar if it starts taking a long time. Note that this
can be a decimal such as 0.5.
-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.
If SIZE starts with @, the size of file whose name follows the @ will be used.
Note that --size has no effect if used with -d PID to watch all file descriptors of a process, but
will work with -d PID:FD.
-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.
If this option is used without -s, the "total size" (in this case, total line count) is calculated
by reading through all input files once before transfer starts. If any inputs are pipes or non-
regular files, or are unreadable, the total size will not be calculated.
-0, --null
Count lines as terminated with a zero byte instead of with a newline. This option implies
--line-mode.
-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.
-m SEC, --average-rate-window SEC
Compute current average rate over a SEC seconds window for average rate and ETA calculations
(default 30 seconds).
-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). If this option is used, the output width will not be adjusted if the width
of the terminal changes while the transfer is running.
-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). If this option is used, the output height will not be adjusted if the height
of the terminal changes while the transfer is running.
-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 kibibytes (*1024), mebibytes, 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 kibibytes (*1024), mebibytes, and so on. The default buffer size is the block size of the
input file's filesystem multiplied by 32 (512KiB max), or 400KiB if the block size cannot be
determined. This can be useful on platforms like MacOS which perform better in pipelines with
specific buffer sizes such as 1024. Implies -C.
-C, --no-splice
Never use splice(2), even if it would normally be possible. The splice(2) system call is a more
efficient way of transferring data from or to a pipe than regular read(2) and write(2), but means
that the transfer buffer may not be used. This prevents -A and -T from working, cannot work with
-X, and makes -B redundant, so using -A, -T, -X, or -B automatically switches on -C. Switching on
-C results in a small loss of transfer efficiency. (This option has no effect on systems where
splice(2) is unavailable).
-E, --skip-errors
Ignore read errors by attempting to skip past the offending sections. The corresponding parts of
the output will be null bytes. At first only a few bytes will be skipped, but if there are many
errors in a row then the skips will move up to chunks of 512. This is intended to be similar to
dd conv=sync,noerror but has not been as thoroughly tested.
Specify -E twice to only report a read error once per file, instead of reporting each byte range
skipped.
-Z BYTES, --error-skip-block BYTES
When ignoring read errors with -E, instead of trying to adaptively skip by reading small amounts
and skipping progressively larger sections until a read succeeds, move to the next file block of
BYTES bytes as soon as an error occurs. There may still be some shorter skips where the block
being skipped coincides with the end of the transfer buffer.
This option can only be used with -E and is intended for use when reading from a block device,
such as -E -Z 4K to skip in 4 kibibyte blocks. This will speed up reads from faulty media, at the
expense of potentially losing more data.
-S, --stop-at-size
If a size was specified with -s, stop transferring data once that many bytes have been written,
instead of continuing to the end of input.
-Y, --sync
After every write operation, synchronise the buffer caches to disk - see fdatasync(2). This has
no effect when the output is a pipe. Using -Y may improve the accuracy of the progress bar when
writing to a slow disk.
-K, --direct-io
Set the O_DIRECT flag on all inputs and outputs, if it is available. This will minimise the
effect of caches, at the cost of performance. Due to memory alignment requirements, it also may
cause read or write failures with an error of "Invalid argument", especially if reading and
writing files across a variety of filesystems in a single pv call. Use this option with caution.
-X, --discard
Instead of transferring input data to standard output, discard it. This is equivalent to
redirecting standard output to /dev/null, except that write(2) is never called. Implies -C.
-d PID[:FD], --watchfd PID[:FD]
Instead of transferring data, watch file descriptor FD of process PID, and show its progress. The
pv process will exit when FD either changes to a different file, changes read/write mode, or is
closed; other data transfer modifiers - and remote control - may not be used with this option.
If only a PID is specified, then that process will be watched, and all regular files and block
devices it opens will be shown with a progress bar. The pv process will exit when process PID
exits.
-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 321KiB instead of 123KiB. Note that some options cannot be changed while running, such
as -c, -l, -f, -D, -E, and -S.
GENERAL OPTIONS
-P FILE, --pidfile FILE
Save the process ID of pv in FILE. The file will be replaced if it already exists, and will be
removed when pv exits. While pv is running, it will contain a single number - the process ID of
pv - followed by a newline.
-h, --help
Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
-V, --version
Print version information on standard output and exit successfully.
FORMATTING
If the -F option is given, then the output format is determined by the given format string. Within that
string, the following sequences can be used:
%p Progress bar. Expands to fill the remaining space. Should only be specified once. Equivalent to
-p.
%t Elapsed time. Equivalent to -t.
%e ETA as time remaining. Equivalent to -e.
%I ETA as local time of completion. Equivalent to -I.
%r Current data transfer rate. Equivalent to -r.
%a Average data transfer rate. Equivalent to -a.
%b Bytes transferred so far (or lines if -l was specified). Equivalent to -b. If --bits was
specified, %b shows the bits transferred so far, not bytes.
%T Percentage of the transfer buffer in use. Equivalent to -T. Shows "{----}" if the transfer is
being done with splice(2), since splicing to or from pipes does not use the buffer.
%nA Show the last n bytes written (e.g. %16A for the last 16 bytes). Shows only dots if the transfer
is being done with splice(2), since splicing to or from pipes does not use the buffer.
%N Name prefix given by -N. Padded to 9 characters with spaces, and suffixed with :.
%% A single %.
The format string equivalent of turning on all display switches is `%N %b %T %t %r %a %p %e'.
COMMON SWITCHES
Some suggested common switch combinations:
pv -ptebar
Show a progress bar, elapsed time, estimated completion time, byte counter, average rate, and
current rate.
pv -betlap
Show a progress bar, elapsed time, estimated completion time, line counter, and average rate,
counting lines instead of bytes.
pv -t Show only the elapsed time - useful as a simple timer, e.g. sleep 10m | pv -t.
pv -pterb
The default behaviour: progress bar, elapsed time, estimated completion time, current rate, and
byte counter.
On MacOS, it may be useful to specify -B 1024 in a pipeline, as this may improve performance.
EXIT STATUS
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.
AUTHOR
Written by Andrew Wood, with patches submitted by various other people. Please see the package's
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS file for a complete list of contributors.
KNOWN PROBLEMS
The following problems are known to exist in pv:
• In some versions of bash(1) and zsh(1), the construct <(pv filename) will not output any progress to
the terminal when run from an interactive shell, due to the subprocess being run in a separate process
group from the one that owns the terminal. In these cases, use --force.
• The -c option does not work properly on Cygwin without cygserver running, if started near the bottom
of the screen (IPC is needed to handle the terminal scrolling). To fix this, start cygserver before
using pv -c.
• The -R option requires that either /run/user/<uid>/ or $HOME/ can be written to, for inter-process
communication.
If you find any other problems, please report them.
REPORTING BUGS
Please report any bugs to pv@ivarch.com.
Alternatively, use the issue tracker linked from the pv home page:
<https://www.ivarch.com/programs/pv.shtml>
SEE ALSO
cat(1), dialog(1), splice(2), open(2) (for O_DIRECT)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2002-2008, 2010, 2012-2015, 2017, 2021, 2023 Andrew Wood.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by law.
Linux November 2023 PV(1)