Monitors a file's size and alerts you when it's stopped growing (useful if you need to wait for a long logging process to finish)

watchsize.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [ -z $1 ]
then
  echo "Usage: watchsize <file>"
  exit
fi

SIZELAST=0
SIZENOW=1

while [ $SIZENOW -gt $SIZELAST ]
do
  sleep 1;
  SIZELAST=$SIZENOW
  SIZENOW=`du "$1" | cut -f1` 
done

# ring da bell
echo -e '\a' || (echo -e '\a'; sleep 1; echo -e '\a')
echo "$1 has stopped growing at $SIZENOW bytes"