Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!srcsip!io!colburn
From: colburn@io.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Mark H. Colburn)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5
Subject: Re: 'ps' is too slow
Message-ID: <18469@srcsip.UUCP>
Date: 10 Mar 89 19:21:17 GMT
References: <1898@holos0.UUCP> <3569@sugar.uu.net> <11991@swan.ulowell.edu> <1119@auspex.UUCP>
Sender: news@src.honeywell.COM
Reply-To: colburn@io.UUCP (Mark H. Colburn)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN
Lines: 21

In article <1119@auspex.UUCP> guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) writes:
+>In DG/UX, as of 4.00, there is a system call "dg_process_info", which
+>returns just about everything you'd want from a 'ps'.  You can specify
+>a uid, pid, tty, pgrp or 'all' (the -u, -p, -t, -g and -e options) to
+>to limit the processes returned.  You just sit in a loop for as long as 
+>the call returns 1.
+
+S5R4 will probably do something similar with "/proc".  Basically, the
+loop will probably look something like:

The SunOS 4.0 release has a fast version of PS.  The first time I ran it I
was waiting for it to start as all the information scrolled off the
screen...  Whether this will be in later versions of S5r4 or not, I don't
know, but, as usuall, Guy's prediction is probably accurate.

I believe that Sun does the fast ps by cacheing all of the process status
information in the kernel, rather than having to read /etc/utmp, etc.

Mark H. Colburn           MN65-2300		colburn@SRC.Honeywell.COM
Systems Administration and Support
Honeywell Systems & Research Center