PSTREE(1)                                 User Commands                                 PSTREE(1)



NAME
       pstree - display a tree of processes

SYNOPSIS
       pstree [-a] [-c] [-h|-Hpid] [-l] [-n] [-p] [-u] [-Z] [-G|-U] [pid|user]
       pstree -V

DESCRIPTION
       pstree  shows running processes as a tree. The tree is rooted at either pid or init if pid
       is omitted. If a user name is specified, all process trees rooted at  processes  owned  by
       that user are shown.

       pstree visually merges identical branches by putting them in square brackets and prefixing
       them with the repetition count, e.g.

           init-+-getty
                |-getty
                |-getty
                '-getty

       becomes

           init---4*[getty]


       If pstree is called as pstree.x11 then it will prompt the user at the end of the  line  to
       press  return and will not return until that has happened.  This is useful for when pstree
       is run in a xterminal.


OPTIONS
       -a     Show command line arguments. If the command line of a process is swapped out,  that
              process is shown in parentheses. -a implicitly disables compaction.

       -c     Disable  compaction of identical subtrees. By default, subtrees are compacted when-
              ever possible.

       -G     Use VT100 line drawing characters.

       -h     Highlight the current process and its ancestors. This is a no-op  if  the  terminal
              doesn't  support  highlighting  or  if  neither  the current process nor any of its
              ancestors are in the subtree being shown.

       -H     Like -h, but highlight the specified process instead. Unlike with -h, pstree  fails
              when using -H if highlighting is not available.

       -l     Display  long lines. By default, lines are truncated to the display width or 132 if
              output is sent to a non-tty or if the display width is unknown.

       -n     Sort processes with the same ancestor by PID instead of by name. (Numeric sort.)

       -p     Show PIDs. PIDs are shown as decimal numbers  in  parentheses  after  each  process
              name. -p implicitly disables compaction.

       -u     Show  uid  transitions.  Whenever  the uid of a process differs from the uid of its
              parent, the new uid is shown in parentheses after the process name.

       -U     Use UTF-8 (Unicode) line drawing characters. Under Linux 1.1-54  and  above,  UTF-8
              mode is entered on the console with echo -e '\033%8' and left with echo -e '\033%@'

       -V     Display version information.

       -Z     (SELinux) Show security context for each process.

FILES
       /proc     location of the proc file system

AUTHORS
       Werner Almesberger <> Craig Small <>

SEE ALSO
       ps(1), top(1)



Linux                                   September 26, 2003                              PSTREE(1)