Find the process you are looking for minus the grepped one

ps aux | grep process-name | grep -v "grep"

-4

By: pavanlimo

2009-08-13 04:40:16

grep ps

10 Alternatives + Submit Alt

Find the process you are looking for minus the grepped one

As an alternative to using an additional grep -v grep you can use a simple regular expression in the search pattern (first letter is something out of the single letter list ;-)) to drop the grep command itself. Show Sample Output

ps aux | grep [p]rocess-name

olorin · 2009-08-13 05:44:45 52

grep processes list avoiding the grep itself

Trick to avoid the form: grep process | grep - v grep Show Sample Output

ps axu | grep [a]pache2

ebah80 · 2012-12-15 19:37:19 34

Find the process you are looking for minus the grepped one

Get the PID of a process by name Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
4234
```
11

pgrep command_name

dstahlke · 2009-08-15 17:03:57 16
Find the process you are looking for minus the grepped one

preferred way to query ps for a specific process name (not supported with all flavors of ps, but will work on just about any linux afaik) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
ion@atomos:~$ ps -C ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
14524 pts/1    00:00:00 ps

ion@atomos:~$ ps -fC ps
UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
ion      14544 13940  0 11:23 pts/1    00:00:00 ps -fC ps
```
6

ps -C command

recursiverse · 2009-08-14 15:30:42 6
Find the process you are looking for minus the grepped one

faster ;) but your idea is really cool
This is sample output - yours may be different.
6

ps -ef | grep c\\ommand

ioggstream · 2011-01-04 11:43:14 5

What Others Think

Added this command just so it is searchable for newbies/beginners

pavanlimo · 791 weeks and 4 days ago

Alternatively you can use the -c argument to ps ps auxc | grep process-name

tweakold · 791 weeks and 4 days ago

Oh nice one guys! I have been putting up with this for years and years now. So good to read this. Still don't follow how olorin's example works though :(

DaveQB · 791 weeks and 3 days ago

@DaveQB: The grep searches for something that starts with a letter out of the list in brackets (which is just the letter p) and then rocess-name. So it will find anything with "process-name" in its command line, but won't find "grep [p]rocess-name" itself, as the brackets prevent grep from finding it (it doesn't start with p, followed by rocess-name, but with bracket, p, bracket, ...).

olorin · 791 weeks and 3 days ago

Simply awesome! :) Thanks

DaveQB · 791 weeks and 3 days ago

rahimhh21 · 110 weeks and 2 days ago

Perfecthomepugs · 101 weeks and 6 days ago

pugpuppies95 · 63 weeks and 6 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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