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PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of
this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of
Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
ps — report process status
SYNOPSIS
ps [-aA] [-defl] [-g grouplist] [-G grouplist]
[-n namelist] [-o format]... [-p proclist] [-t termlist]
[-u userlist] [-U userlist]
DESCRIPTION
The ps utility shall write information about processes, subject to having appropriate
privileges to obtain information about those processes.
By default, ps shall select all processes with the same effective user ID as the current
user and the same controlling terminal as the invoker.
OPTIONS
The ps utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2,
Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported:
-a Write information for all processes associated with terminals. Implementations
may omit session leaders from this list.
-A Write information for all processes.
-d Write information for all processes, except session leaders.
-e Write information for all processes. (Equivalent to -A.)
-f Generate a full listing. (See the STDOUT section for the contents of a full
listing.)
-g grouplist
Write information for processes whose session leaders are given in grouplist.
The application shall ensure that the grouplist is a single argument in the form
of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list.
-G grouplist
Write information for processes whose real group ID numbers are given in
grouplist. The application shall ensure that the grouplist is a single argument
in the form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list.
-l Generate a long listing. (See STDOUT for the contents of a long listing.)
-n namelist
Specify the name of an alternative system namelist file in place of the default.
The name of the default file and the format of a namelist file are unspecified.
-o format Write information according to the format specification given in format. This
is fully described in the STDOUT section. Multiple -o options can be specified;
the format specification shall be interpreted as the <space>-separated
concatenation of all the format option-arguments.
-p proclist
Write information for processes whose process ID numbers are given in proclist.
The application shall ensure that the proclist is a single argument in the form
of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list.
-t termlist
Write information for processes associated with terminals given in termlist.
The application shall ensure that the termlist is a single argument in the form
of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list. Terminal identifiers shall be given in
an implementation-defined format. On XSI-conformant systems, they shall be
given in one of two forms: the device's filename (for example, tty04) or, if the
device's filename starts with tty, just the identifier following the characters
tty (for example, "04").
-u userlist
Write information for processes whose user ID numbers or login names are given
in userlist. The application shall ensure that the userlist is a single
argument in the form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list. In the listing, the
numerical user ID shall be written unless the -f option is used, in which case
the login name shall be written.
-U userlist
Write information for processes whose real user ID numbers or login names are
given in userlist. The application shall ensure that the userlist is a single
argument in the form of a <blank> or <comma>-separated list.
With the exception of -f, -l, -n namelist, and -o format, all of the options shown are
used to select processes. If any are specified, the default list shall be ignored and ps
shall select the processes represented by the inclusive OR of all the selection-criteria
options.
OPERANDS
None.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of ps:
COLUMNS Override the system-selected horizontal display line size, used to determine the
number of text columns to display. See the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8, Environment Variables for valid values and results when
it is unset or null.
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
null. (See the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
Internationalization Variables the precedence of internationalization variables
used to determine the values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other
internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data
as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in
arguments).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of
diagnostic messages written to standard error and informative messages written
to standard output.
LC_TIME Determine the format and contents of the date and time strings displayed.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.
TZ Determine the timezone used to calculate date and time strings displayed. If TZ
is unset or null, an unspecified default timezone shall be used.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
When the -o option is not specified, the standard output format is unspecified.
On XSI-conformant systems, the output format shall be as follows. The column headings and
descriptions of the columns in a ps listing are given below. The precise meanings of these
fields are implementation-defined. The letters 'f' and 'l' (below) indicate the option
(full or long) that shall cause the corresponding heading to appear; all means that the
heading always appears. Note that these two options determine only what information is
provided for a process; they do not determine which processes are listed.
F (l) Flags (octal and additive) associated with
the process.
S (l) The state of the process.
UID (f,l) The user ID number of the process owner;
the login name is printed under the -f
option.
PID (all) The process ID of the process; it is
possible to kill a process if this datum is
known.
PPID (f,l) The process ID of the parent process.
C (f,l) Processor utilization for scheduling.
PRI (l) The priority of the process; higher numbers
mean lower priority.
NI (l) Nice value; used in priority computation.
ADDR (l) The address of the process.
SZ (l) The size in blocks of the core image of the
process.
WCHAN (l) The event for which the process is waiting
or sleeping; if blank, the process is
running.
STIME (f) Starting time of the process.
TTY (all) The controlling terminal for the process.
TIME (all) The cumulative execution time for the
process.
CMD (all) The command name; the full command name and
its arguments are written under the -f
option.
A process that has exited and has a parent, but has not yet been waited for by the parent,
shall be marked defunct.
Under the option -f, ps tries to determine the command name and arguments given when the
process was created by examining memory or the swap area. Failing this, the command name,
as it would appear without the option -f, is written in square brackets.
The -o option allows the output format to be specified under user control.
The application shall ensure that the format specification is a list of names presented as
a single argument, <blank> or <comma>-separated. Each variable has a default header. The
default header can be overridden by appending an <equals-sign> and the new text of the
header. The rest of the characters in the argument shall be used as the header text. The
fields specified shall be written in the order specified on the command line, and should
be arranged in columns in the output. The field widths shall be selected by the system to
be at least as wide as the header text (default or overridden value). If the header text
is null, such as -o user=, the field width shall be at least as wide as the default header
text. If all header text fields are null, no header line shall be written.
The following names are recognized in the POSIX locale:
ruser The real user ID of the process. This shall be the textual user ID, if it can be
obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.
user The effective user ID of the process. This shall be the textual user ID, if it can
be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.
rgroup The real group ID of the process. This shall be the textual group ID, if it can be
obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal representation otherwise.
group The effective group ID of the process. This shall be the textual group ID, if it
can be obtained and the field width permits, or a decimal representation
otherwise.
pid The decimal value of the process ID.
ppid The decimal value of the parent process ID.
pgid The decimal value of the process group ID.
pcpu The ratio of CPU time used recently to CPU time available in the same period,
expressed as a percentage. The meaning of ``recently'' in this context is
unspecified. The CPU time available is determined in an unspecified manner.
vsz The size of the process in (virtual) memory in 1024 byte units as a decimal
integer.
nice The decimal value of the nice value of the process; see nice.
etime In the POSIX locale, the elapsed time since the process was started, in the form:
[[dd-]hh:]mm:ss
where dd shall represent the number of days, hh the number of hours, mm the number
of minutes, and ss the number of seconds. The dd field shall be a decimal integer.
The hh, mm, and ss fields shall be two-digit decimal integers padded on the left
with zeros.
time In the POSIX locale, the cumulative CPU time of the process in the form:
[dd-]hh:mm:ss
The dd, hh, mm, and ss fields shall be as described in the etime specifier.
tty The name of the controlling terminal of the process (if any) in the same format
used by the who utility.
comm The name of the command being executed (argv[0] value) as a string.
args The command with all its arguments as a string. The implementation may truncate
this value to the field width; it is implementation-defined whether any further
truncation occurs. It is unspecified whether the string represented is a version
of the argument list as it was passed to the command when it started, or is a
version of the arguments as they may have been modified by the application.
Applications cannot depend on being able to modify their argument list and having
that modification be reflected in the output of ps.
Any field need not be meaningful in all implementations. In such a case a <hyphen-minus>
('-') should be output in place of the field value.
Only comm and args shall be allowed to contain <blank> characters; all others shall not.
Any implementation-defined variables shall be specified in the system documentation along
with the default header and indicating whether the field may contain <blank> characters.
The following table specifies the default header to be used in the POSIX locale
corresponding to each format specifier.
Table: Variable Names and Default Headers in ps
┌──────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐
│Format Specifier Default Header │ Format Specifier Default Header │
├──────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
│args COMMAND │ ppid PPID │
│comm COMMAND │ rgroup RGROUP │
│etime ELAPSED │ ruser RUSER │
│group GROUP │ time TIME │
│nice NI │ tty TT │
│pcpu %CPU │ user USER │
│pgid PGID │ vsz VSZ │
│pid PID │ │
└──────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
Things can change while ps is running; the snapshot it gives is only true for an instant,
and might not be accurate by the time it is displayed.
The args format specifier is allowed to produce a truncated version of the command
arguments. In some implementations, this information is no longer available when the ps
utility is executed.
If the field width is too narrow to display a textual ID, the system may use a numeric
version. Normally, the system would be expected to choose large enough field widths, but
if a large number of fields were selected to write, it might squeeze fields to their
minimum sizes to fit on one line. One way to ensure adequate width for the textual IDs is
to override the default header for a field to make it larger than most or all user or
group names.
There is no special quoting mechanism for header text. The header text is the rest of the
argument. If multiple header changes are needed, multiple -o options can be used, such as:
ps -o "user=User Name" -o pid=Process\ ID
On some implementations, especially multi-level secure systems, ps may be severely
restricted and produce information only about child processes owned by the user.
EXAMPLES
The command:
ps -o user,pid,ppid=MOM -o args
writes at least the following in the POSIX locale:
USER PID MOM COMMAND
helene 34 12 ps -o uid,pid,ppid=MOM -o args
The contents of the COMMAND field need not be the same in all implementations, due to
possible truncation.
RATIONALE
There is very little commonality between BSD and System V implementations of ps. Many
options conflict or have subtly different usages. The standard developers attempted to
select a set of options for the base standard that were useful on a wide range of systems
and selected options that either can be implemented on both BSD and System V-based systems
without breaking the current implementations or where the options are sufficiently similar
that any changes would not be unduly problematic for users or implementors.
It is recognized that on some implementations, especially multi-level secure systems, ps
may be nearly useless. The default output has therefore been chosen such that it does not
break historical implementations and also is likely to provide at least some useful
information on most systems.
The major change is the addition of the format specification capability. The motivation
for this invention is to provide a mechanism for users to access a wider range of system
information, if the system permits it, in a portable manner. The fields chosen to appear
in this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 were arrived at after considering what concepts were likely
to be both reasonably useful to the ``average'' user and had a reasonable chance of being
implemented on a wide range of systems. Again it is recognized that not all systems are
able to provide all the information and, conversely, some may wish to provide more. It is
hoped that the approach adopted will be sufficiently flexible and extensible to
accommodate most systems. Implementations may be expected to introduce new format
specifiers.
The default output should consist of a short listing containing the process ID, terminal
name, cumulative execution time, and command name of each process.
The preference of the standard developers would have been to make the format specification
an operand of the ps command. Unfortunately, BSD usage precluded this.
At one time a format was included to display the environment array of the process. This
was deleted because there is no portable way to display it.
The -A option is equivalent to the BSD -g and the SVID -e. Because the two systems
differed, a mnemonic compromise was selected.
The -a option is described with some optional behavior because the SVID omits session
leaders, but BSD does not.
In an early proposal, format specifiers appeared for priority and start time. The former
was not defined adequately in this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 and was removed in deference to
the defined nice value; the latter because elapsed time was considered to be more useful.
In a new BSD version of ps, a -O option can be used to write all of the default
information, followed by additional format specifiers. This was not adopted because the
default output is implementation-defined. Nevertheless, this is a useful option that
should be reserved for that purpose. In the -o option for the POSIX Shell and Utilities
ps, the format is the concatenation of each -o. Therefore, the user can have an alias or
function that defines the beginning of their desired format and add more fields to the end
of the output in certain cases where that would be useful.
The format of the terminal name is unspecified, but the descriptions of ps, talk, who, and
write require that they all use the same format.
The pcpu field indicates that the CPU time available is determined in an unspecified
manner. This is because it is difficult to express an algorithm that is useful across all
possible machine architectures. Historical counterparts to this value have attempted to
show percentage of use in the recent past, such as the preceding minute. Frequently, these
values for all processes did not add up to 100%. Implementations are encouraged to provide
data in this field to users that will help them identify processes currently affecting the
performance of the system.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
kill, nice, renice
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8, Environment Variables, Section
12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface
(POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .