How to get command line of UNIX process?

Is it possible to grab the command line that was used to invoke a process on Mac OS X?

user7656

Posted 2009-08-22T12:51:33.997

Reputation: 183

1if "-o args=" truncates the output, you can try ps -p <pid> -o command= – Jose Alban – 2017-08-18T08:44:11.227

1ps --pid $PID -o args= That's what I use, anyway... – yardena – 2011-07-26T17:52:09.250

2The Mac equivalent of that command is: ps -p <pid> -o args= – Nate – 2013-05-07T17:00:35.113

Answers

ps ax shows you the command line of all running processes; you can grep for the pid you want.

Bkkbrad

Posted 2009-08-22T12:51:33.997

Reputation: 423

@mark4o Or simply ps awux | cat, as ps -w will not limit the number of columns to display when output is not stdout, such as when piped to another command. – jtimberman – 2009-08-22T21:06:00.037

Why does this happen every week? "Warning: bad ps syntax, perhaps a bogus '-'? See http://procps.sf.net/faq.html" and "Note that "ps -aux" is distinct from "ps aux". The POSIX and UNIX standards require that "ps -aux" print all processes owned by a user named "x", as well as printing all processes that would be selected by the -a option. If the user named "x" does not exist, this ps may interpret the command as "ps aux" instead and print a warning. This behavior is intended to aid in transitioning old scripts and habits. It is fragile, subject to change, and thus should not be relied upon."

– Hello71 – 2011-07-27T16:47:45.713

I don't know, Hello71. I corrected my two-year-old answer for you. – Bkkbrad – 2011-08-18T18:31:12.267

Does:

~$ ps ax | grep "ntp"
   57   ??  Ss     0:04.66 /usr/sbin/ntpd -c /private/etc/ntp.conf -n
 3104 s000  S+     0:00.00 grep ntp

do what you need it to (change ntp to the program you are interested in)? This usually gives me the command-line arguments of running processes (I use to check what Launchd used when running a system daemon for example).

The Tentacle

Posted 2009-08-22T12:51:33.997

Reputation: 4 621

cat /proc/$PROCESSNUMBER/cmdline | tr '\0' '\n'

Allthough it's Linux specific, it gets the commandline of process numbered $PROCESSNUMBER straight from the kernel (the /proc/$PROCESSNUMBER/cmdline part) and makes it readable by putting each argument on a separate line by translating (with tr -token replace) the \0's into newlines (\n).

This line only works if you put a real processnumber of a running process (you can find one by running the command ps -ef) in the $PROCESSNUMBER part!

JdeHaan

Posted 2009-08-22T12:51:33.997

Reputation: 127

3The original poster asked for Mac OS X (which out of the box does not have procfs) – Andre Holzner – 2012-02-29T22:45:24.213

2Or xargs -0 < /proc/PID/cmdline – Bash – 2012-09-12T23:22:00.547