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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.unix
Subject: Re: externally accessing process environment
Message-ID: <20554@styx.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Apr-86 19:18:20 EST
Article-I.D.: styx.20554
Posted: Tue Apr  8 19:18:20 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Apr-86 07:54:04 EST
References: <171@minnie.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 21
Xref: watmath net.unix-wizards:17521 net.unix:7587
Summary: It's possible

In article <171@minnie.UUCP> chris@minnie.UUCP (Chris Grevstad) writes:
> Running 4.2BSD on an Integrated Solutions 68010 machine.  What I would
> like to know is if there is some way for a process to examine the
> environment of a non-related process.  What I want in particular is a
> way to determine, from an external process, a terminal's type without 
> resorting to the possibly inaccurate file /etc/ttytype. 
> The examining process is running as root.

There's undoubtedly a more elegant way to do this, but you can get the
entire environment of a process using the 'e' option of ps(1). (i.e.,
"ps ewwNNNNN" where NNNNN is the process number. The 'ww' is to get
the "widest" display so the lengthy string is not truncated.
This is known to work on a VAX 780 running 4.2BSD.

You can fork off a ps(1) and read the output through a pipe, muck
around in the result to find TERM, and you're off to the races!

Michael C. Berch
Control Data Corp. / Lawrence Livermore Natl. Laboratory
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb