I want to check a file at continuous intervals for contents which keep changing. "tail -f" doesn't suffice as the file doesn't grow in size. I could use a simple while loop in bash to the same effect: while [ 1 ]; do cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state ; sleep 10; done It works, although it has the unwanted effect of scrolling my terminal window. So now I'm wondering, is there a linux/shell command that would display the output of this file without scrolling the terminal?