gabriel rosenkoetter wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 15, 2001 at 05:24:22PM +1100, Darren Reed wrote:
> > What happens to ps output when you get pid 100000 and pid 1000000 ?
> > What about all those programs which use %5d or %05d or whatever or
> > scripts which expect the pid in columns 1-5 ?
> 
> ps looks ugly and someone realizes that if you want to display a
> 32bit value you'd better leave the right amount of space for it.

ps(1) already dynamically sizes columns to squeeze in as much as is can.
For example:

	thoreau:~ 2018> ps -U root
	PID TT  STAT    TIME COMMAND
	168 E0- I    0:00.59 /usr/X11R6/bin/xfs -config /usr/local/etc/xfs.conf 
	413 E1  Is+  0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty std.9600 ttyE1 
	414 E2  Is+  0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty std.9600 ttyE2 
	415 E3  Is+  0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty std.9600 ttyE3 
	416 E4  Is+  0:00.02 /usr/libexec/getty std.9600 ttyE4 

Any scripts expecting "%5d" are already broken...  And in answer to
the first question (re pid 100000 and 1000000), it'll just work - the
columns will still line up nicely...

Simon.
--
Simon Burge                            <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
NetBSD CDs, Support and Service:    http://www.wasabisystems.com/