'ps' behavoir in Linux - Was - Re: array limits

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Apr 16, 2004 at 03:37:50PM -0400, Fairlight wrote:
> > But I could believe that /proc/$PID could be temporarily unpopulated
> > for processes which were swapped out; I'm not authoritatively familiar
> > with the semantics there.
> 
> man ps:
> "
>        Programs swapped out to disk will be shown without command
>        line  arguments,  and  unless  the  c  option is given, in
>        brackets.
> "
> 
> So we -know- that's accurate.
> 
> And you, apparently, are correct--to an extent.  You couldn't grab your
> environ file contents from /proc on a swapped out process; the virtual file
> is empty.  However, you can see what fd's are in use and to what files they
> point in the /proc/$PID/fd/ directories.
> 
> I didn't know that environ unpopulates when things are swapped out.
> Interesting.  Whatever led you to this conclusion, you happen to be right,
> and you've taught me something.  Thanks.

Edumacated guess.  Extrapolated from the [-behavior on SCO.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
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