How to cat a file for a certain number of seconds?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Run a command for a specified time and then abort if time exceeds

Looked all over and I can't find the answer...

Simple question: How can I cat a large file for, lets say, 45 seconds and output it to the screen or redirect to another file.

Thanks!

For the "or redirect to another file" part of the question, which the accepted answer does not cover at all, see my answer here: How to use timeout with redirection to a file. — Gabriel Staples, Oct 13 '22 at 16:43

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

10

You could try:

timeout 45 cat yourfile

edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

Community

answered Feb 08 '12 at 20:04

student

timeout is cleaner and allows the duration option to be specified in seconds, minutes, hours, as well as the option to specify which signal to send. cleaner and more readable – bsd Feb 08 '12 at 20:14
timeout not available on MacOS, at least in bash 3 – Alexander Mills Apr 20 '18 at 22:09
@AlexanderMills Install coreutils via Homebrew, use gtimeout. – HappyFace Aug 09 '20 at 19:06
I just added an answer to this here: How to use timeout with redirection to a file, for those who also need to redirect the output to a file with > file. – Gabriel Staples Oct 13 '22 at 16:41

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