unifiedps 1.3.1                                                   2010-02-14

NAME
     unifiedps -- a unified, cross-platform process status

SYNOPSIS
     unifiedps [-<user-defined-option> [<argument1> [<argument2> ...]]]
               [--display-format <format>]
               [--display-indent <field>]
               [--no-display-indent <field>]
               [--display-header]
               [--no-display-header]
               [--display-width <width>]
               [--mark <field> <operator> <value> [or ...]]
               [--no-mark <field>]
               [--restrict <field> <operator> <value> [or ...]]
               [--no-restrict <field>]
               [--include <relation>]
               [--no-include <relation>]
               [--platform <platform>]
               [--stdin]
               [--version]

DESCRIPTION
     Unifiedps displays information about running processes by wrapping and
     decorating the platform's native ps command in a unified way across
     different platforms, e.g. Mac OS X/Darwin, Linux, AIX, and HP-UX.

     As unifiedps supports multiple platforms, it displays only a selection
     of information about the processes which is available on all supported
     platforms. Currently, for each process, the process' id, the parent
     process' id, the user's name, the name of the controlling terminal, the
     process' cpu time, and the associated command and arguments will be
     shown.

     Unifiedps has a set of built-in options which do not correspond to the
     options of any platform's native ps command. All these built-in options
     start with two dashes. Additionally, unifiedps provides a small macro
     processor for defining user-defined options which may reflect options
     of a native ps command. User-defined options start with a single dash.

     Built-in options:

     --display-format <format>
          Selects the format to use for displaying the processes.

          Possible formats are list and tree. list selects a simple list
          format, while tree selects a format which displays a process'
          child processes in a tree-structured, hierarchical way.

          By default, the tree format is used.

     --display-indent <field>
          Indents the information of the given <field> according to the
          process' hierarchy. A <field>'s indentation-width is increased by
          one whitespace for each specified --display-indent option.

          Available <field>s are command and pid.

          This option is considerd by the tree display format only.

     --no-display-indent <field>
          Removes the indentation for the specified <field>. The <field>
          value all removes indentations for all fields.

     --display-header
     --no-display-header
          Does/Doesn't display a header line.

     --display-width <width>
          Specifies the number of columns to use for formatting the output.

          If -1 is specified as the <width>, unifiedps will use as many
          columns as necessary to display the processes' information.

          By default, the current window's width is used for formatting the
          output. The environment variable <COLUMNS> is used to determine
          the window's width. If this variable is not defined, 80 columns
          will be used.

     --mark <field> <operator> <value> [or <operator> <value> [or ...]]
          Marks all displayed processes which match the given criteria. If
          the --mark option is specified more than once then the criteria
          from all --mark options will be and'ed.

          Available <field>s are command, pid, tty, and user.

          Valid <operator>s are equals, contains, starts, ends and their
          negating counterparts nequals, ncontains, nstarts, and nends.
          Operators can be abbreviated with at least the first two
          characters, e.g. eq or co, and at least the first three characters
          for negating operators, e.g. neq or nco.

          The special <operator>s is and nis map to contains and ncontains
          for the command <field> and to equals and nequals for all other
          <field>s.

          For the tty <field>, no-tty is a special <value> for specifying
          that a controlling terminal does not exist.

          By default, the displayed processes of the current user are
          marked. This corresponds to specifying --mark user eq $USER on the
          command line.

     --no-mark <field>
          Removes all previously specified mark criteria for the given
          <field>. The <field> value all can be used to remove the mark
          criteria for all fields.

     --restrict <field> <operator> <value> [or <operator> <value> [or ...]]
          Restricts the displayed processes by the specified restriction
          criteria.

          The format of the option's arguments is equal to those of the
          --mark option.

          By default, only processes which belong to the current user and
          which are connected to a controlling terminal are displayed.

     --no-restrict <criterion>
          Removes all previously specified restriction criteria.

          The format of the option's arguments is equal to those of the
          --no-mark option.

     --include <relation>
          Includes all processes for display which are in the given
          <relation> to the selected processes.

          Possible <relation>s are parents and children.

          Includes are processed after restrictions, but includes qualify
          for marking.

     --no-include <relation>
          Removes all previously specified includes for the given type of
          <relation>. Use the special <relation> all to remove all includes.

     --platform <platform>
          Skips the auto-detection of the current platform and uses the
          supplied <platform> instead.

          Supported <platform>s are aix, darwin, freebsd, hpux, i5ospase,
          linux, macosx, and solaris.

     --stdin
          Reads the process list from STDIN instead of calling the
          platform's native ps command.

     --version
          Prints unifiedps' version information and exits.

     User-defined options:

     -<user-defined-option> [<argument1> [<argument2> ...]]
          Expands the user-defined option as defined in the user-specific
          configuration file ~/.unifiedpsrc.

          A definition of a user-defined option has the following format
          which must be specified within a single line:

          -<name> [<argument-names>] := <definition>

          where <name> is the name of the user-defined option,
          <argument-names> is an optional, whitespace-separated list of the
          option's argument names, and <definition> is the definition to
          which the option will be expanded by the macro processor. In the
          <definition>, an argument name 'a' can be referenced via '${a}'.
          During macro expansion, all argument names will be replaced by the
          concrete arguments which were specified at the command line.

          A user-defined option '-u <user>' which restricts the displayed
          processes to those which belong to the specified user can be
          defined as follows:

          -u user := --no-restrict user --restrict user eq ${user}

          A line which starts with a '#' is considered as a comment. All
          contigous comments in front of a user-defined option's definition
          are considered as the option's documentation.

     User-defined options configured in the packaged .unifiedpsrc file:

     -a
     --no-restrict user
          Displays information about the processes of all users.

     -aa
     --no-restrict user --include parents --include children
          Displays information about the processes of all users. Includes
          all parent and child processes.

     -A
     --no-restrict user --no-restrict tty
          Displays information about the processes of all users, even those
          which are not connected to a controlling terminal.

     -AA
     --no-restrict user --no-restrict tty --include parents --include
     children
          Displays information about the processes of all users, even those
          which are not connected to a controlling terminal. Includes all
          parent and child processes

     -AAx
     --no-restrict user --no-restrict tty --include parents --include
     children --restrict user neq root --restrict user neq nobody --restrict
     user neq daemon --restrict user nst _
          Displays information about the processes of all users, even those
          which are not connected to a controlling terminal, but not those
          which belong to root, nobody, daemon, and those users starting
          with a '_'. Includes all parent and child processes

     -ax
     --no-restrict user --restrict user neq root --restrict user neq nobody
     --restrict user neq daemon --restrict user nst _
          Displays information about the processes of all users, but not
          those which belong to root, nobody, daemon, and those users
          starting with a '_'.

     -aax
     --no-restrict user --include parents --include children --restrict user
     neq root --restrict user neq nobody --restrict user neq daemon
     --restrict user nst _
          Displays information about the processes of all users, but not
          those which belong to root, nobody, daemon, and those users
          starting with a '_'. Includes all parent and child processes.

     -c <command>
     --no-restrict command --restrict command nstarts unifiedps --restrict
     command is <command>
          Displays information about the processes which contain the
          specified keyword in their command line. Excludes unifiedps from
          the set of displayed processes.

     -u <user>
     --no-restrict user --restrict user equals <user>
          Displays only information about those processes which belong to
          the specified user.

     -t
     --display-format tree --no-display-indent all --display-indent pid
     --display-indent command --display-indent command
          Uses the tree-structured display format and indents the pid and
          the command field

     -f
     --display-format tree --no-display-indent all --display-indent command
     --display-indent command
          Uses the tree-structured display format and indents only the
          command field

     -l
     --display-format list
          Uses the list-like display format.

     -w
     --display-width 132
          Uses 132 columns to display information, instead of the default
          display width.

     -ww
     --display-width -1
          Uses as many columns as necessary for displaying the processes'
          information.

     -x
     --no-restrict tty
          Also displays information about processes which are not connected
          to a controlling terminal.

     -p
     --no-display-header
          Displays only the processes and no header line

     -s
     --restrict command nstarts unifiedps
          Excludes unifiedps from the set of displayed processes

     -h
     --help
          Displays the help text.

     -v
     --version
          Shows the version information and exits.

SUPPORTED PLATFORMS
     AIX
     Darwin
     FreeBSD
     HP-UX
     i5/OS PASE
     Linux
     Mac OS X
     Solaris

RELEASES AND BUGS
     The latest release of unifiedps is always available from its web site
     at <http://0xc0.de/unifiedps>.

     Please report bugs and feature requests to <unifiedps-bugs@0xc0.de>

AUTHOR
     Arne Harren <ah@0xc0.de>.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
     Copyright 2005-2010 by Arne Harren <ah@0xc0.de>.

     Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
     copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
     Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
     without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
     distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
     permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
     the following conditions:

     The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
     in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

     THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
     OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
     MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
     IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
     CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
     TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
     SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

unifiedps 1.3.1                                                   2010-02-14