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Denis Vlasenko40215162006-11-05 00:47:38 +00001This is what POSIX 2003 says about ps:
2
3By default, ps shall select all processes with the same effective user
4ID as the current user and the same controlling terminal as the invoker
5
6ps [-aA][-defl][-G grouplist][-o format]...[-p proclist][-t termlist]
7[-U userlist][-g grouplist][-n namelist][-u userlist]
8
9-a Write information for all processes associated with terminals.
10 Implementations may omit session leaders from this list.
11
12-A Write information for all processes.
13
14-d Write information for all processes, except session leaders.
15
16-e Write information for all processes. (Equivalent to -A.)
17
18-f Generate a full listing. (See the STDOUT section for the con-
19 tents of a full listing.)
20
21-g grouplist
22 Write information for processes whose session leaders are given
23 in grouplist. The application shall ensure that the grouplist is
24 a single argument in the form of a <blank> or comma-separated
25 list.
26
27-G grouplist
28 Write information for processes whose real group ID numbers are
29 given in grouplist. The application shall ensure that the grou-
30 plist is a single argument in the form of a <blank> or comma-
31 separated list.
32
33-l Generate a long listing. (See STDOUT for the contents of a long
34 listing.)
35
36-n namelist
37 Specify the name of an alternative system namelist file in place
38 of the default. The name of the default file and the format of a
39 namelist file are unspecified.
40
41-o format
42 Write information according to the format specification given in
43 format. Multiple -o options can be specified; the format speci-
44 fication shall be interpreted as the <space>-separated concate-
45 nation of all the format option-arguments.
46
47-p proclist
48 Write information for processes whose process ID numbers are
49 given in proclist. The application shall ensure that the pro-
50 clist is a single argument in the form of a <blank> or comma-
51 separated list.
52
53-t termlist
54 Write information for processes associated with terminals given
55 in termlist. The application shall ensure that the termlist is a
56 single argument in the form of a <blank> or comma-separated
57 list. Terminal identifiers shall be given in an implementation-
58 defined format. On XSI-conformant systems, they shall be
59 given in one of two forms: the device's filename (for example,
60 tty04) or, if the device's filename starts with tty, just the
61 identifier following the characters tty (for example, "04" ).
62
63-u userlist
64 Write information for processes whose user ID numbers or login
65 names are given in userlist. The application shall ensure that
66 the userlist is a single argument in the form of a <blank> or
67 comma-separated list. In the listing, the numerical user ID
68 shall be written unless the -f option is used, in which case the
69 login name shall be written.
70
71-U userlist
72 Write information for processes whose real user ID numbers or
73 login names are given in userlist. The application shall ensure
74 that the userlist is a single argument in the form of a <blank>
75 or comma-separated list.
76
77With the exception of -o format, all of the options shown are used to
78select processes. If any are specified, the default list shall be
79ignored and ps shall select the processes represented by the inclusive
80OR of all the selection-criteria options.
81
82The -o option allows the output format to be specified under user con-
83trol.
84
85The application shall ensure that the format specification is a list of
86names presented as a single argument, <blank> or comma-separated. Each
87variable has a default header. The default header can be overridden by
88appending an equals sign and the new text of the header. The rest of
89the characters in the argument shall be used as the header text. The
90fields specified shall be written in the order specified on the command
91line, and should be arranged in columns in the output. The field widths
92shall be selected by the system to be at least as wide as the header
93text (default or overridden value). If the header text is null, such as
94-o user=, the field width shall be at least as wide as the default
95header text. If all header text fields are null, no header line shall
96be written.
97
98ruser The real user ID of the process. This shall be the textual user
99 ID, if it can be obtained and the field width permits, or a dec-
100 imal representation otherwise.
101
102user The effective user ID of the process. This shall be the textual
103 user ID, if it can be obtained and the field width permits, or a
104 decimal representation otherwise.
105
106rgroup The real group ID of the process. This shall be the textual
107 group ID, if it can be obtained and the field width permits, or
108 a decimal representation otherwise.
109
110group The effective group ID of the process. This shall be the textual
111 group ID, if it can be obtained and the field width permits, or
112 a decimal representation otherwise.
113
114pid The decimal value of the process ID.
115
116ppid The decimal value of the parent process ID.
117
118pgid The decimal value of the process group ID.
119
120pcpu The ratio of CPU time used recently to CPU time available in the
121 same period, expressed as a percentage. The meaning of
122 "recently" in this context is unspecified. The CPU time avail-
123 able is determined in an unspecified manner.
124
125vsz The size of the process in (virtual) memory in 1024 byte units
126 as a decimal integer.
127
128nice The decimal value of the nice value of the process; see nice() .
129
130etime In the POSIX locale, the elapsed time since the process was
131 started, in the form: [[dd-]hh:]mm:ss
132
133time In the POSIX locale, the cumulative CPU time of the process in
134 the form: [dd-]hh:mm:ss
135
136tty The name of the controlling terminal of the process (if any) in
137 the same format used by the who utility.
138
139comm The name of the command being executed ( argv[0] value) as a
140 string.
141
142args The command with all its arguments as a string. The implementa-
143 tion may truncate this value to the field width; it is implemen-
144 tation-defined whether any further truncation occurs. It is
145 unspecified whether the string represented is a version of the
146 argument list as it was passed to the command when it started,
147 or is a version of the arguments as they may have been modified
148 by the application. Applications cannot depend on being able to
149 modify their argument list and having that modification be
150 reflected in the output of ps.
151
152Any field need not be meaningful in all implementations. In such a case
153a hyphen ( '-' ) should be output in place of the field value.
154
155Only comm and args shall be allowed to contain <blank>s; all others
156shall not.
157
158The following table specifies the default header to be used in the
159POSIX locale corresponding to each format specifier.
160
161 Format Specifier Default Header Format Specifier Default Header
162 args COMMAND ppid PPID
163 comm COMMAND rgroup RGROUP
164 etime ELAPSED ruser RUSER
165 group GROUP time TIME
166 nice NI tty TT
167 pcpu %CPU user USER
168 pgid PGID vsz VSZ
169 pid PID
170
171There is no special quoting mechanism for header text. The header text
172is the rest of the argument. If multiple header changes are needed,
173multiple -o options can be used, such as:
174
175 ps -o "user=User Name" -o pid=Process\ ID