ps Keywords

Keywords for the ps command.
Multiple keywords can be space or comma separated.

     %cpu    The cpu utilization of the process; this is a decaying average
             over up to a minute of previous (real) time.  Since the time base
             over which this is computed varies (since processes can be very
             young) it is possible for the sum of all %CPU fields to exceed 100%.

     %mem    The percentage of real memory used by this process.

     flags   The flags associated with the process as in the include file:

         P_ADVLOCK        0x00001    Process may hold a POSIX advisory lock
         P_CONTROLT       0x00002    Has a controlling terminal
         P_LP64           0x00004    Process is LP64
         P_NOCLDSTOP      0x00008    No SIGCHLD when children stop
         P_PPWAIT         0x00010    Parent is waiting for child to exec/exit
         P_PROFIL         0x00020    Has started profiling
         P_SELECT         0x00040    Selecting; wakeup/waiting danger
         P_CONTINUED      0x00080    Process was stopped and continued
         P_SUGID          0x00100    Had set id privileges since last exec
         P_SYSTEM         0x00200    System proc: no sigs, stats or swapping
         P_TIMEOUT        0x00400    Timing out during sleep
         P_TRACED         0x00800    Debugged process being traced
         P_WAITED         0x01000    Debugging process has waited for child
         P_WEXIT          0x02000    Working on exiting
         P_EXEC           0x04000    Process called exec
         P_OWEUPC         0x08000    Owe process an addupc() call at next ast
         P_WAITING        0x40000    Process has a wait() in progress
         P_KDEBUG         0x80000    Kdebug tracing on for this process

     lim     The soft limit on memory used, specified via a call to
             setrlimit(2).

     lstart  The exact time the command started, using the ``%c'' format
             described in strftime(3).

     nice    The process scheduling increment (see setpriority(2)).

     rss     the real memory (resident set) size of the process (in 1024 byte
             units).

     start   The time the command started.  If the command started less than
             24 hours ago, the start time is displayed using the %l:ps.1p
             format described in strftime(3).  If the command started less
             than 7 days ago, the start time is displayed using the
              %a6.15p format.  Otherwise, the start time is displayed using
             the %e%b%y format.

     state   The state is given by a sequence of letters, for example,
             "RWNA".  The first letter indicates the run state of the process:

       D       Marks a process in disk (or other short term, uninterruptible) wait.[legacy option]
       I       Marks a process that is idle (sleeping for longer than about 20 seconds).
       R       Marks a runnable process.
       S       Marks a process that is sleeping for less than about 20 seconds.
       T       Marks a stopped process.
       U       Marks a process in uninterruptible wait.
       Z       Marks a dead process (a 'zombie').

       Additional characters after these, if any, indicate additional
       state information:

       +       The process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.
       <       The process has raised CPU scheduling priority.
       >       The process has specified a soft limit on memory requirements and is currently
               exceeding that limit; such a process is (necessarily) not swapped.
       A       the process has asked for random page replacement
               (VA_ANOM, from vadvise(2), for example, lisp(1) in a garbage collect).
       E       The process is trying to exit.
       L       The process has pages locked in core (for example, for raw I/O).
       N       The process has reduced CPU scheduling priority (see setpriority(2)).
       S       The process has asked for FIFO page replacement (VA_SEQL,
               from vadvise(2), for example, a large image processing
               program using virtual memory to sequentially address
               voluminous data).
       s       The process is a session leader.
       V       The process is suspended during a vfork.
       W       The process is swapped out.
       X       The process is being traced or debugged.

     tt        An abbreviation for the pathname of the controlling terminal, if any.
               The abbreviation consists of the three letters following /dev/tty, or,
               for the console, 'con'.  This is followed by a '-' if  the process can
               no longer reach that controlling terminal (i.e., it has been revoked).

     wchan     The event (an address in the system) on which a process waits.
               When printed numerically, the initial part of the address is trimmed off
               and the result is printed in hex, for example,  0x80324000 prints as 324000.

When printing using the command keyword, a process that has exited and has a parent that has not yet waited for the process (in other words, a zombie) is listed as ''', and a process which is blocked while trying to exit is listed as '''. Ps makes an educated guess as
to the file name and arguments given when the process was created by examining memory or the swap area. The method is inherently somewhat unreliable and in any event a process is entitled to destroy this information, so the names cannot be depended on too much.
The ucomm (accounting) keyword can, however, be depended on.

KEYWORDS

The following is a complete list of the available keywords and their meanings.
Several of them have aliases (keywords which are synonyms).

     %cpu       percentage cpu usage (alias pcpu)
     %mem       percentage memory usage (alias pmem)
     acflag     accounting flag (alias acflg)
     args       command and arguments
     comm       command
     command    command and arguments
     cpu        short-term cpu usage factor (for scheduling)
     etime      elapsed running time
     flags      the process flags, in hexadecimal (alias f)
     gid        the effective gid
     inblk      total blocks read (alias inblock)
     jobc       job control count
     ktrace     tracing flags
     ktracep    tracing vnode
     lim        memoryuse limit
     logname    login name of user who started the process
     lstart     time started
     majflt     total page faults
     minflt     total page reclaims
     msgrcv     total messages received (reads from pipes/sockets)
     msgsnd     total messages sent (writes on pipes/sockets)
     nice       nice value (alias ni)
     nivcsw     total involuntary context switches
     nsigs      total signals taken (alias nsignals)
     nswap      total swaps in/out
     nvcsw      total voluntary context switches
     nwchan     wait channel (as an address)
     oublk      total blocks written (alias oublock)
     p_ru       resource usage (valid only for zombie)
     paddr      swap address
     pagein     pageins (same as majflt)
     pgid       process group number
     pid        process ID
     poip       pageouts in progress
     ppid       parent process ID
     pri        scheduling priority
     prsna      persona
     re         core residency time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
     rgid       real group ID
     rss        resident set size
     ruid       real user ID
     ruser      user name (from ruid)
     sess       session pointer
     sig        pending signals (alias pending)
     sigmask    blocked signals (alias blocked)
     sl         sleep time (in seconds; 127 = infinity)
     start      time started
     state      symbolic process state (alias stat)
     svgid      saved gid from a setgid executable
     svuid      saved uid from a setuid executable
     tdev       control terminal device number
     time       accumulated cpu time, user + system (alias cputime)
     tpgid      control terminal process group ID
     tsess      control terminal session pointer
     tsiz       text size (in Kbytes)
     tt         control terminal name (two letter abbreviation)
     tty        full name of control terminal
     ucomm      name to be used for accounting
     uid        effective user ID
     upr        scheduling priority on return from system call (alias usrpri)
     user       user name (from uid)
     vsz        virtual size in Kbytes (alias vsize)
     wchan      wait channel (as a symbolic name)
     wq         total number of workqueue threads
     wqb        number of blocked workqueue threads
     wqr        number of running workqueue threads
     wql        workqueue limit status (C = constrained thread limit, T = total thread limit)
     xstat      exit or stop status (valid only for stopped or zombie process)

Related macOS commands

kill - Stop a process from running.
ps - Process status.


 
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