Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:50:41 +1000 (EST) From: Bruce Evans <brde@optusnet.com.au> To: brian@FreeBSD.org Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org, rivanr@gmail.com Subject: Re: bin/137647: ps(1) output depends on terminals column width when piping or redirecting Message-ID: <20090825224356.L40693@delplex.bde.org> In-Reply-To: <200908250803.n7P8373T068548@freefall.freebsd.org>
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On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 brian@FreeBSD.org wrote:
> Synopsis: ps(1) output depends on terminals column width when piping or redirecting
>
> State-Changed-From-To: open->closed
> State-Changed-By: brian
> State-Changed-When: Tue Aug 25 07:56:45 UTC 2009
> State-Changed-Why:
> I agree with Michael. ps(1) checks stdout, stderr then stdin to see if
> it's a tty, and if none are will set the width to 79.
>
> Scripts should either use pgrep or pkill, or else use ps -ww and also
> possibly -o comm or -o command.
Er, don't you agree with me? I sent a long reply, including to
bug-followup, but it isn't in the PR followup :-(. Summary:
(1) checking stdin is bogus and is what causes this problem, but I
can't see a better way to handle cases like "ps | less" where the
output is redirected but the final output is still to a tty.
(2) handling of widths is mostly broken, starting with it mostly only
applying to the last field.
Bruce
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