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Why can I find e.g. top, pppd, etc. with this but not Finder, iTunes, etc.?
Authored by: hamarkus on Jan 10, '04 05:38:10PM

Why can I find e.g. top, pppd, etc. but not Finder, iTunes, etc. with this command 'ps aux | grep xxx'? It seems I can only find processes that 'are not owned by me', as in 'needing a sudo to kill them'.

BTW, thanks for the explanation, I've finally understood piping and the grep command.

Markus



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Why can I find e.g. top, pppd, etc. with this but not Finder, iTunes, etc.?
Authored by: floop on Jan 10, '04 10:34:33PM

I tried "ps aux | grep Finder" and it did not work for me. What made it work was widening the window, strange. Seems like the line from ps is too long and gets clipped. I find that using ps axc works better to find process numbers.

Also capitalization is important. Use Finder, not finder.



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Why can I find e.g. top, pppd, etc. with this but not Finder, iTunes, etc.?
Authored by: aranor on Jan 10, '04 11:47:12PM
If you do ps -auxww | grep -i Finder then it works fine. The 2 w's make it display all data regardless of window size, and the -i to grep makes it case-insensitive. Although, I'm not sure why you'd have a problem with window width when piping - I haven't verified it, but I was under the impression that piped commands ignored the terminal environment since its output wasn't being directed to the terminal.

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Yep, window size is the decisive factor
Authored by: hamarkus on Jan 11, '04 06:03:55AM

Either increasing the window size, or using the 'auxww' option makes it display the result of the command. It's funny, I never changed any of the settings of the terminal (10.2.8 installation); when I open a new terminal window it briefly shows: 80x24 and comparing with the screen resolution, the default window should be about 500 pixel wide.



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Yep, window size is the decisive factor
Authored by: aranor on Jan 11, '04 09:00:32AM

The 80x24 isn't pixels, it's rows and columns.



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Why can I find e.g. top, pppd, etc. with this but not Finder, iTunes, etc.?
Authored by: nvdingo on Jan 11, '04 11:48:24AM

in order for grep to do a case insensitive match, do
`grep -i <pattern>`

do you want grep to show you everything but some pattern?
use -v

case insensitive restrict would be -iv (or -vi)

and of course, you can really narrow down your options by chaining your greps!

You are welcome.



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