How can I visualize real-time Linux system information like the output of command top?

Question

I want to implement a simple demo that can visualize real-time system load, my requirement is really simple, just to get the data of command top is enough.

But I'm not sure how to get the real-time data, should I grep the output or read from file system , could anyone provide some clues on how to get the real-time data ?

thkx!

Answer 1

Parsing the output from top is certainly enough to visualize realtime system load. For general realtime system information, you might want to take a look at the /proc virtual filesystem , which contains information exposed by the kernel. This is also in easily parsible tabular form.