`ps` command truncating text

[keelba]

I have some processes that show a long file path as part of the process name and the process name gets truncated off.

Does anyone know how to get the full output from the `ps`command so that I can see the whole process name?

[RTM]

It might not matter but what OS?

Try first setting your term window to wrap and possibly 132 characters. If none of this works - you could send the output to a file and vi it (if your really wanting to see the output).

[keelba]

The OS is HP-UX 11.0.

I've tried sending the output to a file and it still gets truncated. I've noticed in the man page that there is a -o option that will allow me to specify certain columns but it only works with XPG4. I don't know what XPG4 is or how I use it.

[RTM]

I jumped on a HP server and saw the same problem. I set my TERM to vt100 and then the line wrapped.

sh or ksh

$ export TERM=vt100
or
$ TERM=vt100; export TERM

csh
setenv TERM vt100

[Perderabo]

How long is the pathname?

Only a subset of the command line is saved by the kernel; as much of the command line will be displayed as is available.

As for XPG4...

Refer to the UNIX95 variable under EXTERNAL INFLUENCES for addition information on XPG4 behavior.
.
.
.
UNIX95 specifies to use the XPG4 behavior for the command.

[keelba]

The command line is apparently longer than 40 characters. I can't see just how long the command line is because it is running from a large batch in the middle of the night and I don't know exactly the commands that are being called. (That's what I'm trying to find out).

Thank you for your reply. I guess I'll have to figure out another way.

[Perderabo]

Originally posted by keelba
The command line is apparently longer than 40 characters.

If you are only getting 40 characters, something else is wrong. I am getting 60 characters. I actually expected a few more characters. /usr/include/sys/pstat.h sets PST_CLEN at 64. I assume that includes a terminating null, so I should be able to see 63 characters. I don't know where my other 3 characters went.

[LivinFree]

I don't think the ps that is shipped with HP-UX will understand BSD-style options, but in case I'm wrong, try:
ps auw

Also, it may understand the Unix98 (I think) ps options:
ps -efw

And just to refresh my memory, HP-UX 11 doesn't use the /proc filesystem, does it? If I'm mistaken, and it actually does, try :
ll /proc/(pid#)/exe

[ganti]

Try

ps eww <process number>

It'll give you the full command and the environment variables
when the process was created

GOOD LUCK

[Perderabo]

HP-UX, at present, can support UNIX95 but not UNIX98. And UNIX98 does not support a -w option to ps anyway. To verify that I followed the link that Neo added to the standard. The language is very interesting...

args The command with all its arguments as a string. The implementation may truncate this value to the field width; it is implementation-defined whether any further truncation occurs. It is unspecified whether the string represented is a version of the argument list as it was passed to the command when it started, or is a version of the arguments as they may have been modified by the application. Applications cannot depend on being able to modify their argument list and having that modification be reflected in the output of ps.

And later...

It is recognized that on some implementations, especially multi-level secure systems, ps may be nearly useless.

HP, for better or worse, wanted to be able to obtain a high security rating for HP-UX. Their B level version of HP-UX is a different product, but it shares much code with plain old HP-UX. Not only does HP's ps have no way of displaying the environment variables of other processes, but there is no way to do that under HP-UX. The only reason that ps has any shot of displaying the command line is that the kernel saves a copy of the command as it exec()'s a process. But the area where it is saved is only 64 bytes. There is no hope of writing a version of ps that displays more than that on HP-UX short of modifying the kernel to save more of the command line.

I'm not sure what "ll /proc/$pid/exe" is supposed to do. But there is no standard for what a /proc filesystem contains. On SunOS, I went to a /proc entry and did an ls. I got:

as        ctl       lpsinfo   lwp       pagedata  root      usage
auxv      cwd       lstatus   map       psinfo    sigact    watch
cred      fd        lusage    object    rmap      status    xmap

And none of those files is ascii data that be simply printed out. But HP-UX has no /proc filesystem anyway.

Sorry for the bad news, folks. But there are some differences among the various versions of UNIX. You can't take everything you know about your own version of UNIX and assume that it will work everywhere.