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From: reiner@jabberwock.shs.ohio-state.edu (Reiner Wilhelms)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Process ID of a "Stranger"
Keywords: PID, ps , getpid(2)
Message-ID: <266@jabberwock.shs.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 90 00:00:53 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Ohio State University, Division of Speech and Hearing Science
Lines: 23


It is rather easy to obtain the process Id of a process via the system
call getpid(), and of the parent process via getppid().
However, how can I obtain the process id of a "stranger": some other
process, running on the same machine, if I just know its name?
Of course, it is possible to call ps, and then search for the name in
its output.  I wonder if there is any system call or ugly trick which
does a simpler job, like:

{
int pid,errorcode;
 ....
errorcode =  pid_by_name("Stranger",&pid);
if (errorcode == THERE_IS_NO_ONE_WITH_THAT_NAME) 
	sprintf(stderr,"Stranger is not running\n");
 ....
}
Is there something like pid_by_name() in Unix?
Or, to put it different, what does ps do?

Thank you for any hint.

Reiner