Quickies, by Andrea Olivato

Simple PHP updating counter on a Bash shell

If you’re running a php script on a shell and want to know what it’s doing, at which point of the script it is you can simply use the chr function to print a backspace and updating a counter while running.

Below is a quick example

	
<?php
	$howmany = 20;
	echo "I have to do $howmany cycles\n";
	for($a=0;$a<$howmany;$a++) {
		$bkspacestring = "";
		for($k=0;$k<strlen(($a-1));$k++)
			$bkspacestring .= chr(8);
		echo $bkspacestring.$a;
		sleep(1);
	}
	echo "\nDid it!\n";
?>