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Hi python fellows,

I'm currently inspecting my Linux process list, trying to parse it in
order to get one particular process (and kill it).
I ran into an annoying issue:
The stdout display is somehow truncated (maybe a terminal length issue,
I don't know), breaking my parsing.

import subprocess
commandLine = ['ps', '-eo "%p %U %P %y %t %C %c %a"']
process = subprocess.Popen(commandLine, stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
processList, stderrdata = process.communicate()

Here is a sample of what I get in processList.split('\n'):

' "25487 1122 4344 ? 7-17:48:32 2.5 firefox-bin
/usr/lib/iceweasel/firefox-"',
' "25492 1122 4892 pts/6 00:08 57.2 ipython
/usr/bin/python /usr/bin/ip"',


As you can see, to complete process command line is truncated.
Any clue on how to get the full version ?

JM

(python 2.5)

On Nov 18, 11:25*am, Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmic...@sequans.com>
wrote:
> Hi python fellows,
>
> I'm currently inspecting my Linux process list, trying to parse it in
> order to get one particular process (and kill it).
> I ran into an annoying issue:
> The stdout display is somehow truncated (maybe a terminal length issue,
> I don't know), breaking my parsing.
>
> import subprocess
> commandLine = ['ps', '-eo "%p %U %P %y %t %C %c %a"']
> process = subprocess.Popen(commandLine, stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
> stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
> processList, stderrdata = process.communicate()
>
> Here is a sample of what I get in processList.split('\n'):
>
> *' "25487 1122 * * *4344 ? * * * * 7-17:48:32 *2.5 firefox-bin * *
> /usr/lib/iceweasel/firefox-"',
> *' "25492 1122 * * *4892 pts/6 * * * * *00:08 57.2 ipython * * * *
> /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/ip"',
>
> As you can see, to complete process command line is truncated.
> Any clue on how to get the full version ?
>
> JM
>
> (python 2.5)

What about "ps -eo pid,tty,cmd" ?

Sample:
12680 ? geany /usr/share/gramps/ReportBase/
_CommandLineReport.py
12682 ? gnome-pty-helper
12683 pts/0 /bin/bash
13038 ? gnome-terminal
13039 ? gnome-pty-helper
13040 pts/1 bash
13755 pts/1 ps -eo pid,tty,cmd

....etc...


hth,

Jon.

On Nov 18, 4:14*pm, Jon Clements <jon...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 18, 11:25*am, Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmic...@sequans.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi python fellows,
>
> > I'm currently inspecting my Linux process list, trying to parse it in
> > order to get one particular process (and kill it).
> > I ran into an annoying issue:
> > The stdout display is somehow truncated (maybe a terminal length issue,
> > I don't know), breaking my parsing.
>
> > import subprocess
> > commandLine = ['ps', '-eo "%p %U %P %y %t %C %c %a"']
> > process = subprocess.Popen(commandLine, stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
> > stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
> > processList, stderrdata = process.communicate()
>
> > Here is a sample of what I get in processList.split('\n'):
>
> > *' "25487 1122 * * *4344 ? * * * * 7-17:48:32 *2.5 firefox-bin * *
> > /usr/lib/iceweasel/firefox-"',
> > *' "25492 1122 * * *4892 pts/6 * * * * *00:08 57.2 ipython * * * *
> > /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/ip"',
>
> > As you can see, to complete process command line is truncated.
> > Any clue on how to get the full version ?
>
> > JM
>
> > (python 2.5)
>
> What about "ps -eo pid,tty,cmd" ?
>
> Sample:
> 12680 ? * * * *geany /usr/share/gramps/ReportBase/
> _CommandLineReport.py
> 12682 ? * * * *gnome-pty-helper
> 12683 pts/0 * */bin/bash
> 13038 ? * * * *gnome-terminal
> 13039 ? * * * *gnome-pty-helper
> 13040 pts/1 * *bash
> 13755 pts/1 * *ps -eo pid,tty,cmd
>
> ...etc...
>
> hth,
>
> Jon.

Another thought: if you're only wanting to find and kill a process,
what about pkill? Saves you having to filter the list in Python and
then issue a kill command.

Jon.

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:25:14 +0100, Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:

> I'm currently inspecting my Linux process list, trying to parse it in
> order to get one particular process (and kill it).
> I ran into an annoying issue:
> The stdout display is somehow truncated (maybe a terminal length issue,
> I don't know), breaking my parsing.

> As you can see, to complete process command line is truncated.
> Any clue on how to get the full version ?

If you only need it to work on Linux, you can just enumerate
/proc/[1-9]*/exe or /proc/[1-9]*/cmdline.

Or you can add -ww to "ps" to avoid truncating the output.

Note that the /proc/*/exe report the actual executable. The command line
reported by "ps" (from /proc/*/cmdline) can be modified by the program, so
it doesn't necessarily reflect the program being run.

Nobody wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:25:14 +0100, Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:
>
>
>> I'm currently inspecting my Linux process list, trying to parse it in
>> order to get one particular process (and kill it).
>> I ran into an annoying issue:
>> The stdout display is somehow truncated (maybe a terminal length issue,
>> I don't know), breaking my parsing.
>>
>
>
>> As you can see, to complete process command line is truncated.
>> Any clue on how to get the full version ?
>>
>
> If you only need it to work on Linux, you can just enumerate
> /proc/[1-9]*/exe or /proc/[1-9]*/cmdline.
>
> Or you can add -ww to "ps" to avoid truncating the output.
>
> Note that the /proc/*/exe report the actual executable. The command line
> reported by "ps" (from /proc/*/cmdline) can be modified by the program, so
> it doesn't necessarily reflect the program being run.
>
>
>
That is what I was searching for. It's in ps man page, I don't know why
I missed it in the first place.
Thanks.

JM

On Nov 18, 12:25*pm, Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmic...@sequans.com>
wrote:
> Hi python fellows,
>
> I'm currently inspecting my Linux process list, trying to parse it in
> order to get one particular process (and kill it).
> I ran into an annoying issue:
> The stdout display is somehow truncated (maybe a terminal length issue,
> I don't know), breaking my parsing.

Below is the script I use to automatically kill firefox if it is not
behaving, maybe you are looking for something similar.

HTH,
Bas


#!/usr/bin/env python

import commands, os
lines = os.popen('ps ax|grep firefox').readlines()
lines = [line for line in lines if 'grep' not in line]
print lines[0]
pid = int(lines[0][:5])
print 'Found pid: %d' %pid
os.system('kill -9 %d' %pid)

Jean-Michel Pichavant <> writes:

> Hi python fellows,
>
> I'm currently inspecting my Linux process list, trying to parse it in
> order to get one particular process (and kill it).
> I ran into an annoying issue:
> The stdout display is somehow truncated (maybe a terminal length
> issue, I don't know), breaking my parsing.
>
> import subprocess
> commandLine = ['ps', '-eo "%p %U %P %y %t %C %c %a"']
> process = subprocess.Popen(commandLine, stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
> stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
> processList, stderrdata = process.communicate()
>
> Here is a sample of what I get in processList.split('\n'):
>
> ' "25487 1122 4344 ? 7-17:48:32 2.5 firefox-bin
> /usr/lib/iceweasel/firefox-"',
> ' "25492 1122 4892 pts/6 00:08 57.2 ipython
> /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/ip"',
>
>
> As you can see, to complete process command line is truncated.
> Any clue on how to get the full version ?
>

You need to pass -ww to ps, otherwise it tries to guess the width of
your terminal and adjust output line lengths accordingly.

On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:21:09 -0800, Bas wrote:

> Below is the script I use to automatically kill firefox if it is not
> behaving, maybe you are looking for something similar.

> lines = os.popen('ps ax|grep firefox').readlines()

This isn't robust. It will kill any process with "firefox" anywhere in its
command line, which isn't limited to processes which are actually running
the firefox web browser.

> lines = [line for line in lines if 'grep' not in line]

This line excludes one such process, but there may be others.

A more robust approach would be to check for the string in the command
name (i.e. argv[0]) rather than the complete command-line, by using e.g.
"ps ... -o pid,comm":

lines = os.popen('ps axheo pid,comm').readlines()
lines = [line.strip().split(' ', 1) for line in lines]
lines = [(int(pid), cmd) for pid, cmd in lines if 'firefox' in cmd]

Better still would be to check that "firefox" is a complete word, not part
of one, e.g. with the regular expression r"\bfirefox\b". This would match
"firefox", "/usr/bin/firefox", "firefox-bin", etc, but not e.g.
"kill_firefox", e.g.:

lines = [(int(pid), cmd) for pid, cmd in lines if re.search(r'\bfirefox\b', cmd)]

That's about as good as you can get without using non-portable mechanisms
such as /proc/*/exe.