How can I get the process details like name of application & real path of application from process id?
I am using Mac OS X.
5 Answers
It's quite easy to get the process name / location if you know the PID, just use proc_name or proc_pidpath. Have a look at the following example, which provides the process path:
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> #include <errno.h> #include <libproc.h> int main (int argc, char* argv[]) { pid_t pid; int ret; char pathbuf[PROC_PIDPATHINFO_MAXSIZE]; if ( argc > 1 ) { pid = (pid_t) atoi(argv[1]); ret = proc_pidpath (pid, pathbuf, sizeof(pathbuf)); if ( ret <= 0 ) { fprintf(stderr, "PID %d: proc_pidpath ();\n", pid); fprintf(stderr, " %s\n", strerror(errno)); } else { printf("proc %d: %s\n", pid, pathbuf); } } return 0; } 
6 Comments
Quinn Taylor
URL to Alen's blog entry on this: astojanov.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/…
Quinn Taylor
This worked perfectly for me, thanks Alen! Surprising how hard it is to find this information online --- all the Linux heads insist that /proc should work. :-)
Federico Terzi
A note about the proc_pidpath function: the buffer size MUST be PROC_PIDPATHINFO_MAXSIZE. If you specify a smaller size, the call fail, even though the dimension would be enough to fit the complete path.
Asif Ali
this works as expected, can someone help on how we can find the "version" of a running process (or say application)
andrea.marangoni
I get segmentation fault when I call
proc_pidpath. Not sure what I am doing wrong. |
You can use the Activity Monitor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activity_Monitor
Or in the Terminal App you can use:
ps xuwww -p PID PIDis the process id you are looking for More help on 'ps`command you can find with
man ps 
4 Comments
ptim
Is this downvoted because the app name is not returned?
ps [PID] worked for me when I needed it just now - I did have to infer the name of the application from the path, admittedly.
Ky -
@Qix it can be by using
Process (AKA NSTask), setting its launch path to /bin/bash, its arguments to ["-c", "ps xuwww -p \(pid)"], and its standardOutput to a Pipe you control
Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
@BenLeggiero That is terrible software engineering practice and should be avoided at all costs.
Ky -
@Qix I agree! That's why I didn't offer it as an answer ;)
Try use lsof
example:
lsof -p 1066 -Fn | awk 'NR==2{print}' | sed "s/n\//\//"
output:
/Users/user/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 2/Packages
1 Comment
Guy
not working on Mac OS 10.12.1. It was
lsof -p 22558 -Fn | awk 'NR==5{print}' | sed "s/n\//\//"If the PID is the PID of a "user application", then you can get the NSRunningApplication of the app like that:
NSRunningApplication * app = [NSRunningApplication runningApplicationWithProcessIdentifier:pid ]; And to print the path of the executable:
NSLog(@"Executable of app: %@", app.executableURL.path); the app bundle itself is here
NSLog(@"Executable of app: %@", app.bundleURL.path); However this won't work with system or background processes, it's limited to user apps (those typically visible in the dock after launch). The NSRunningApplication object allows to to check if the app is ative, to hide/unhide it and do all other kind of neat stuff.
Just thought I mention it here for completeness. If you want to work with arbitrary processes, then the accepted answer is of course better.
Comments
I would like to make a better ssh-copy-id in bash only!! For that, i have to know where is sshd to ask him his actual config. On some system i have multiple sshd and which is not my friend. Also on some macOS the ps command didn't show the full path for sshd.
lsof -p $PPID | grep /sshd | awk '{print $9}' this return
/usr/sbin/sshd after i could ask for
sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -T | grep authorizedkeysfile this return, on some system
authorizedkeysfile .ssh/authorized_keys so i have to put in .ssh/authorized_keys
proc_pidpath.