Time ticker with variable line length for easy visual recognition of ssh session freezes

ticker.pl

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Sys::Hostname;
require 'sys/ioctl.ph';

main(@ARGV);

sub main {
  # Ascertain terminal dimensions, assume 80 cols upon failure
  my ($dimensions, $rows, $columns) = '';
  if (ioctl(STDOUT, TIOCGWINSZ(), $dimensions)) {
    ($rows, $columns) = unpack 'S4', $dimensions;
  } else {
    warn "Note: ioctl failed to ascertain terminal dimensions\n";
    warn "Assuming 80 columns as default\n";
    $columns = 80;
  }

  while (1) {
    my $tick = "·";
    if ($columns > 40) {
      # output hostname, full timestamp + padding, for aesthetics
      print hostname() ." $tick ". localtime() . " $tick$tick$tick";
    } else {
      # output short clock, no padding
      my ($seconds, $minutes, $hours) = localtime();
      print "$hours:$minutes:$seconds ";
    }
    foreach(0 .. int(rand(10))) { print $tick }
    print "\n";
    sleep(1);
  }
}