I have always been a big fan of gnuplot as it allows you to create quick graphs on the fly, and supports piping data to it.

It's possible to create real-time graphs using this.

I figured I'd share some useful bash oneliners:

-= graphical traceroute =-

    traceroute -q1 slashdot.org | sed '1 d' | awk '{print $1"\t"$4"\t"$2}' | \
        gnuplot -e 'set terminal dumb;set xtics rotate by -45' -e 'plot "-" using 2:xticlabels(3) with lines'

  120 +--------------------------------------------------------------------+   
      |   +  +   +   +  +   +  +   +   +  +   +                     +  +   |   
      |                                  "-" using 2:xticlabels(3) ******* |   
  100 |-+                                                              ***-|   
      |                                                              **   *|   
      |                                                            **      |   
      |                                                          **        |   
   80 |-+                                                     ***        +-|   
      |                                                     **             |   
      |                                                  ***               |   
   60 |-+                                              **                +-|   
      |                                              **                    |   
      |                            ***            ***                      |   
   40 |-+                         *   *         **                       +-|   
      |                          *     *********                           |   
      |                         *                                          |   
      |             ************                                           |   
   20 |-+         **                                                     +-|   
      |  *********                                                         |   
      |** +  +   +   +  +   +  +   +   +  +   +                     +  +   |   
    0 +--------------------------------------------------------------------+   
   be-be-be-1be-141be-be-1be-2411-pe11.ashburbr0ar07-te13-3.lwdc.a216.105.38.15
                                                      
-= disk usage plot =-

    find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -not -iname '.' -exec du -hs {} \; | gnuplot -e 'set style data histogram; set terminal dumb; plot "-" using ($1/1024):xtic(2)'

                                                                               
  0.14 +-------------------------------------------------------------------+   
       |        +       +        +       +        +       +        +       |   
       |      ****                     "-" using ($1/1024):xtic(2)         |   
  0.12 |-+    *  *                                                       +-|   
       |      *  *                                                         |   
       |      *  *                                                         |   
   0.1 |-+    *  *                                                       +-|   
       |      *  *                                                         |   
       |      *  *                                                         |   
  0.08 |-+    *  *                                                       +-|   
       |      *  *                                                         |   
  0.06 |-+    *  *             ****     ***                              +-|   
       |      *  *             *  *     * *                                |   
       |      *  *             *  *     * *                                |   
  0.04 |-+    *  *             *  *     * *                              +-|   
       |      *  *             *  *     * *                                |   
       |      *  *             *  *     * *                                |   
  0.02 |-+    *  *             *  *     * *                      ****    +-|   
       |      *  *     ***     *  *     * *                      *  *      |   
       |      * +*     *+*     * +*     *+*       +       +      * +*      |   
     0 +-------------------------------------------------------------------+   
              ./api  ./.git  ./gradle ./.idea ./.gradle./codec ./creator       


disk usage gnuplot



I think gnuplot is an example of a graphical application done right: you can script it, pipe to it, etc... the graphical and tui interfaces are interchangable.

I wish more graphical applications were written in a way that they can be combined with bash-kungfu.