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When I do ps -ef|grep python I get the following:

myusername  4492  2994  0 10:32 pts/0    00:00:01 /home/myusername/.virtualenvs/myproject/bin/ipython manage.py runserver
root        6665     1  0 10:42 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/system-service/system-service-d
myusername 14051 13497  0 11:28 pts/7    00:00:00 grep --color=auto python

How do I get only the user who is running the process, the pid and the command run for the process as in the following output instead? 

myusername  4492 /home/myusername/.virtualenvs/myproject/bin/ipython manage.py runserver
root        6665 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/system-service/system-service-d
Bentley4
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4 Answers4

17

I guess you are looking for the -o argument:

-o format:

user-defined format. format is a single argument in the form of a blank-separated or comma-separated list, which offers a way to specify individual output columns. The recognized keywords are described in the STANDARD FORMAT SPECIFIERS section below. Headers may be renamed (ps -o pid,ruser=RealUser -o comm=Command) as desired. If all column headers are empty (ps -o pid= -o comm=) then the header line will not be output. Column width will increase as needed for wide headers; this may be used to widen up columns such as WCHAN (ps -o pid,wchan=WIDE-WCHAN-COLUMN -o comm). Explicit width control (ps opid,wchan:42,cmd) is offered too. The behavior of ps -o pid=X,comm=Y varies with personality; output may be one column named "X,comm=Y" or two columns named "X" and "Y". Use multiple -o options when in doubt. Use the PS_FORMAT environment variable to specify a default as desired; DefSysV and DefBSD are macros that may be used to choose the default UNIX or BSD columns.

So the command you want would be (Ubuntu):

ps -o uid,pid,cmd -ef|grep python

under OpenSolaris the command is:

ps -o ruser,pid,comm -ef|grep python
Simon
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    Does that actually work for you? When I run that command I get `Warning: bad ps syntax, perhaps a bogus '-'? See http://procps.sf.net/faq.html` – Bentley4 Mar 19 '13 at 11:07
  • Yes it works for me in ksh under OpenSolaris. The output is as you desire... Check the man pages for ps on your system `man ps`. Maybe the syntax is slightly different on your system. – Simon Mar 19 '13 at 11:17
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    But the OP is on bash and not on ksh – pratnala Mar 19 '13 at 11:20
  • @pratnala: Sorry must have been an oversight on my side... Nonetheless I tested it as well with bash on my system and it works as well... – Simon Mar 19 '13 at 11:33
  • @Bentley4: I tested the command `ps -o ruser,pid,comm -ef` on Ubuntu 10.04 and had the same result as you. I then run `ps -o uid,pid,cmd -ef` and got the desired result. I hope it works for you as well. – Simon Mar 19 '13 at 11:45
  • Unfortunately when I run `ps -o uid,pid,cmd -ef|python` I get about a half a page of information for each process. – Bentley4 Mar 19 '13 at 11:57
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    @Bentley4 If you just want the command and don't need additional information you can drop the -f argument and use the following command: `ps -o uid,pid,cmd -e|grep python` – Simon Mar 19 '13 at 12:49
  • Thank you!! `ps -o user,pid,cmd -e|grep python` was the exact command I was looking for. Everytime I do this command however I get `myusername 1219 grep --color=auto command`(with `command` being `python` in this case). Any idea how to get rid of it? – Bentley4 Mar 19 '13 at 13:19
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    @Bentley4: `ps -o user,pid,cmd -e|grep '[p]ython'` – Simon Mar 19 '13 at 13:45
4

The simplest would probably be:

$ ps o uid=,pid=,cmd= -C python
1000 26126 python

That way you get everything directly from ps and don't need to parse anything.

From the ps man page:

-o format

User-defined format. format is a single argument in the form of a blank-separated or comma-separated list, which offers a way to specify individual output columns. [...] Headers may be renamed (ps -o pid,ruser=RealUser -o comm=Command) as desired. If all column headers are empty (ps -o pid= -o comm=) then the header line will not be output.

-C cmdlist
     Select by command name.  This selects the processes whose executable 
     name is given in cmdlist.

The -C option will work if you are running python interactively, not if python is running a script. In that case you should use -C scriptname.py instead.

terdon
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2
ps -eo user,pid,cmd | grep [p]ython

Example:

$ ps -eo user,pid,cmd | grep [p]ython
root      1056 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/networkd-dispatcher --run-startup-triggers
root      1735 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/fail2ban-server -xf start
user     16613 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/share/system-config-printer/applet.py

Explanation:

  • -e all processes
  • -o user-defined format
  • user,pid,cmd Show user, process ID, command columns

Note: if you use -f with -o as others have suggested, you may get errors. This is because both of these parameters control the output format, and only one of them should be used:

$ ps --help | grep -A 2 "output format"
*********** output format **********
-o,o user-defined  -f full
-j,j job control   s  signal
bmaupin
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1

My version of PS is different, so it might require some tweaking, but you can use cut (and possibly tr depending on what you are trying to achieve) - for example something like

ps ef | cut -c1-16,50-

Will provide the characters 1-16 and 50 onwards from each line of your ps statement. (Your actual numbers will probably need a bit of massaging).

Another way to do it (but you will loose formatting) might be

ps ef | tr -s " " | cut -f1,2,8- -d" "

Which will compress the whitespace in the ps command, then take fields 1,2 and 8 onwards and display them.

terdon
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davidgo
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  • For only one process I get a half page of information on a full screen with those commands. It's pretty unreadable, I'm 'massaging' the parameters but so far I haven't been able to get anything remotely of what I want. – Bentley4 Mar 19 '13 at 11:17