Package: procps
Version: 2:3.3.12-2
Severity: wishlist
File: /usr/share/man/man1/ps.1.gz
Man page says
AIX FORMAT DESCRIPTORS
This ps supports AIX format descriptors, which work somewhat like the
formatting codes of printf(1) and printf(3). For example, the normal
default output can be produced with this: ps -eo "%p %y %x %c". The
NORMAL codes are described in the next section.
$ ps -o "%p %y %x %c"
PID TTY TIME COMMAND
1580 pts/2 00:00:00 bash
1817 pts/2 00:00:00 ps
$ ps
PID TTY TIME CMD
1580 pts/2 00:00:00 bash
1818 pts/2 00:00:00 ps
So they actually differ by COMMAND vs. CMD. So that paragraph is wrong.
Also don't use -e, as the default is many lines less than with -e.
Also mention one can mix % and non % items, but must use separate -o stanzas:
$ ps -o pid -o %c
PID COMMAND
1212 bash
1920 ps
Also please mention, quite near the top of the page, what the default
output in fact is.
OK I found it is
$ ps -o "%p %y %x" -o ucmd
By the way, also
CODE NORMAL HEADER...
%y tty TTY
is wrong.
%y tty TTY
should be
%y tname TTY
as tty will produce TT.
$ ps -o %y -o tty -o tname|sed 2q
TTY TT TTY
pts/0 pts/0 pts/0
(Perhaps also add a --limit option, so one doesn't need sed when testing
as above.)
Also at
Print only the process IDs of syslogd:
ps -C syslogd -o pid=
mention how to get rid of blanks. Mention that the only way is
to apparently alas rely on external programs:
# ps -C rsyslogd -o pid= | tr -d ' '
424
Also as I above do, use rsyslogd instead of syslogd so people can test
without editing, as rsyslogd is what more people perhaps use these days.
By the way, this is busted for n=1,
$ for n in `seq 5`;do echo -n $n:; ps -e --lines $n --rows $n --headers|wc -l;
done
1:116
2:230
3:173
4:154
5:144
Also be very careful, sometime on the man page you say "screen",
sometimes you say "page", when apparently talking about the same thing.
In fact there is a second meaning of "page" also there too... (memory page).
Maybe they should all be "page" as we are talking more of a printer like
output than top(1) output...
