Is there a tool that can top-ify an input stream?

Solution 1:

You don't need to write a tool, the standard unix toolset can accommodate you just fine.

#!/bin/bash
echo -e 'Unit\tStatus\tMessage\t\t\tRetval'
cat /var/log/filename | awk '{match($0,"\".*\"",a)}{print $6 "\t" $3 "\t" a[0] "\t\t" $NF}' |sort -k<fieldnum>

Put that in a .sh file and run watch on it.