Command line and full screen utilities for browsing procfs, a "pseudo" file system dynamically generated by Linux to provide information about the status of entries in its process table.
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Jim Warner 7ef38420a4 top: refactored for correct multi-byte string handling
When this project first began implementing translation
support nearly 6 years ago, we overcame many 'gettext'
obstacles and limitations.  And, of course, there were
not any actual translations at the time so our testing
was quite limited plus, in many cases, only simulated.

None of that, however, can justify or excuse the total
lack of attention to top's approach to NLS, especially
since some actual translations have existed for years.

When the issue referenced below was raised, I suffered
immediate feelings of anxiety, doubt and pending doom.
This was mostly because top strives to avoid line wrap
at all costs and that did not bode well for multi-byte
translated strings, using several bytes per character.

I was also concerned over possible performance impact,
assuming it was even possible to properly handle utf8.

But, after wrestling with the problem for several days
those initial feelings have now been replaced by guilt
over any trouble I initially caused those translators.

One can only imagine how frustrating it must have been
after the translation effort to then see top display a
misaligned column header and fields management page or
truncated screens like those of help or color mapping.
------------------------------------------------------

Ok, with that off my chest let's review these changes,
now that top properly handles UTF8 multi-byte strings.

. Performance - virtually all of this newly added cost
for multi-byte support is incurred during interactions
with the user. So, performance is not really an issue.

The one occasion when performance is impacted is found
during 'summary_show()' processing, due to an addition
of one new call to 'utf8_delta()' in 'show_special()'.

. Extra Wide Characters - I have not yet and may never
figure out a way to support languages like zh_CN where
the characters can be wider than most other languages.

. Translated User Name - at some future point we could
implement translation of user names. But as the author
of the issue acknowledged such names are non-standard.
Thus task display still incurs no new multi-byte costs
beyond those already incurred in that escape.c module.

For raising the issue I extend my sincerest thanks to:
Göran Uddeborg

Reference(s):
https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/issues/68

Signed-off-by: Jim Warner <james.warner@comcast.net>
2017-10-01 22:19:58 +11:00
contrib miscellaneous: clean up trailing whitespace once again 2013-04-07 18:05:01 +10:00
Documentation miscellaneous: remove some trailing whitespace buildup 2015-06-20 07:46:23 +10:00
include misc: fix strtod_nol_err tests 2016-07-13 20:08:51 +10:00
lib misc: fix strtod_nol_err tests 2016-07-13 20:08:51 +10:00
man-po ps: recognize SCHED_DEADLINE 2016-11-07 10:23:01 +01:00
misc build-sys: rename the 'tools' subdirectory to 'misc' 2012-03-02 21:25:38 +11:00
po Merge branch 'free_french_alignment' into 'master' 2016-08-23 10:44:53 +00:00
proc whattime: Fix formatting 2017-09-23 17:32:29 +10:00
ps Consolidated patch of previously merged CYGWIN support 2017-09-03 20:59:23 +10:00
testsuite Consolidated patch of previously merged CYGWIN support 2017-09-03 20:59:23 +10:00
top top: refactored for correct multi-byte string handling 2017-10-01 22:19:58 +11:00
.gitignore Consolidated patch of previously merged CYGWIN support 2017-09-03 20:59:23 +10:00
.gitlab-ci.yml added gettext to dependency 2016-04-20 22:15:27 +10:00
AUTHORS Changed git site to gitlab 2015-05-10 14:57:50 +10:00
autogen.sh Fix a remaining util-linux word in autogen 2012-02-26 08:39:16 +11:00
ChangeLog Changed git site to gitlab 2015-05-10 14:57:50 +10:00
configure.ac Consolidated patch of previously merged CYGWIN support 2017-09-03 20:59:23 +10:00
COPYING license: update FSF addresses 2012-03-04 08:04:24 +11:00
COPYING.LIB miscellaneous: clean up trailing whitespace once again 2013-04-07 18:05:01 +10:00
create-man-pot.sh docs: with systemd now in library, remember openproc.3 2014-07-18 20:49:57 +02:00
free.1 watch,free: interpet intervals in non-locale way 2016-07-03 16:14:36 +10:00
free.c misc: eliminate all those remaining gcc -Wall warnings 2017-05-22 21:34:32 +10:00
INSTALL.md docs: Updated documentation 2015-05-10 17:23:54 +10:00
kill.1 docs: fix manual page warnings 2012-04-16 12:55:53 +02:00
Makefile.am Consolidated patch of previously merged CYGWIN support 2017-09-03 20:59:23 +10:00
NEWS add changelog for previous 2017-09-25 09:14:00 +10:00
pgrep.1 pkill: Return 0 if successfully killed process 2017-02-04 11:44:01 +11:00
pgrep.c pkill: Return 0 if successfully killed process 2017-02-04 11:44:01 +11:00
pidof.1 pidof: support for omitted %PPID and additional separators 2013-10-14 15:38:33 +02:00
pidof.c pidof: check cmd if space in argv0 2016-04-17 16:43:26 +10:00
pkill.1 procps 010114 2002-02-01 22:47:29 +00:00
pmap.1 pmap: Including -p in the man page 2013-11-26 13:45:22 +01:00
pmap.c pmap: fix printing bug associated with the '-x' option 2016-09-11 09:21:44 +10:00
pwdx.1 docs: fix manual page warnings 2012-04-16 12:55:53 +02:00
pwdx.c Handle out of memory conditions. 2015-07-11 21:28:47 +02:00
README.md misc: repair a single instance of 'whitespace' boo-boo 2016-07-09 13:23:27 +10:00
skill.1 skill: support namespaces 2013-04-18 13:59:44 -04:00
skill.c Consolidated patch of previously merged CYGWIN support 2017-09-03 20:59:23 +10:00
slabtop.1 procps: Add a zero-width break point in slabtop.1 2015-06-01 22:04:40 +10:00
slabtop.c 'slabtop -o' with stdin not a tty would complain 2015-01-24 17:27:12 +11:00
snice.1 procps 010114 2002-02-01 22:47:29 +00:00
sysctl.8 docs: Fix typos in slabtop.1, sysctl.8 and uptime.1 2014-09-16 19:35:28 +02:00
sysctl.c Avoid confusing messages caused by EIO on reading 2017-08-30 22:39:56 +10:00
sysctl.conf docs: remove tcp_default_win_scale from sysctl.conf sample 2012-01-24 22:34:12 +01:00
sysctl.conf.5 misc: remove some newly introduced trailing whitespace 2016-09-26 07:41:04 +10:00
tload.1 docs: fix manual page warnings 2012-04-16 12:55:53 +02:00
tload.c Fix out of boundary write on 1x1 terminals 2017-08-30 22:39:56 +10:00
translate-man.sh Fixed translate-man.sh for no top ps 2014-05-28 20:12:33 +10:00
uptime.1 docs: Fix typos in slabtop.1, sysctl.8 and uptime.1 2014-09-16 19:35:28 +02:00
uptime.c Merge commit 'refs/merge-requests/2' of git://gitorious.org/procps/procps into merge-requests/2 2013-09-11 20:50:48 +10:00
vmstat.8 library: reverting tmpfs subtraction from cached (18-FEB-2014) 2014-04-30 13:59:34 +02:00
vmstat.c vmstat: Fix alignment for disk partition format 2017-09-25 09:09:57 +10:00
w.1 sysctl, w: miscelaneous usage/man fixes 2013-07-19 14:50:02 +02:00
w.c Added Cygwin build support 2016-03-10 15:04:27 -08:00
watch.1 documentation: Update watch man page 2016-07-03 16:16:28 +10:00
watch.c misc: eliminate all those remaining gcc -Wall warnings 2017-05-22 21:34:32 +10:00

build status procps

procps is a set of command line and full-screen utilities that provide information out of the pseudo-filesystem most commonly located at /proc. This filesystem provides a simple interface to the kernel data structures. The programs of procps generally concentrate on the structures that describe the processess running on the system.

The following programs are found in procps:

  • free - Report the amount of free and used memory in the system
  • kill - Send a signal to a process based on PID
  • pgrep - List processes based on name or other attributes
  • pkill - Send a signal to a process based on name or other attributes
  • pmap - Report memory map of a process
  • ps - Report information of processes
  • pwdx - Report current directory of a process
  • skill - Obsolete version of pgrep/pkill
  • slabtop - Display kernel slab cache information in real time
  • snice - Renice a process
  • sysctl - Read or Write kernel parameters at run-time
  • tload - Graphical representation of system load average
  • top - Dynamic real-time view of running processes
  • uptime - Display how long the system has been running
  • vmstat - Report virtual memory statistics
  • w - Report logged in users and what they are doing
  • watch - Execute a program periodically, showing output fullscreen

Reporting Bugs

There are a few ways of reporting bugs or feature requests:

  1. Your distributions bug reporter. If you are using a distribution your first port of call is their bug tracker. This is because each distribution has their own patches and way of dealing with bugs. Also bug reporting often does not need any subscription to websites.
  2. GitLab Issues - To the left of this page is the issue tracker. You can report bugs here.
  3. Email list - We have an email list (see below) where you can report bugs. The problem with this method is bug reports often get lost and cannot be tracked. This is especially a big problem when its something that will take time to resolve.

If you need to report bugs, there is more details on the Bug Reporting page.

Email List

The email list for the developers and users of procps is found at http://www.freelists.org/archive/procps/ This email list discusses the development of procps and is used by distributions to also forward or discuss bugs.