How to permanently set refresh interval for top command?

Question

I'm just looking at the tutorials for top command and came to know that the refresh interval can be overridden by hitting S on the keyboard while the top command is displaying information.

The default value for refresh interval was 3 seconds. I was able to override the refresh interval to different value.

However, when I quit and come back and try the top command again, it is refreshing the processes information again for every 3 seconds and not with the interval that I've set earlier.

I was looking for a way to configure this interval permanently. I've looked at some articles where in they mentioned to use the toprc file in /etc directory for this configuration.

But it doesn't seem like I have any such file in /etc or my home directory.

How do I set the refresh interval for top command?

I'm using Ubuntu 18.04.

Solution 1

Personal configurations such as this may be saved to your ~/.toprc file by hitting SHIFT+W in the interactive top session.

From man top (or online):

 6b. PERSONAL Configuration File
   This  file is written as `$HOME/.your-name-4-top' + `rc'.  Use the
   `W' interactive command to create it or update it.

Solution 2

Why not just launch top with a preset interval like this top -d 5. Which will make top start preconfigured to update every 5 seconds.

Comments

[Underoos]

If I do that, I had to do top -d 5 everytime instead of top.

[endrias]

Then save this as a one liner script named /bin/pot and you'll never have to save a personal config for each user, albeit at the modest price of having to type pot every time you want top

[Déjà vu]

What about an alias alias top="top -d 5"?

[endrias]

alias top="top -d 5" works but only for the current shell, unless you make it permanent by sudo echo "alias top="top -d 5"" >> ~/.bashrc