Limit the output of the TOP command to a specific process name

Question

If you call the top command, you get all the running processes. But how can I limit the output only to a certain process name like \"java\"?

I\'ve

Answer 1

Use the watch command

watch -d 'top -n1 | grep mysql'

Answer 2

get pid of process:

# pidof <process>

tell top what process pid(s) to display

# top -p <pid1>,<pid2>, etc

example:

landis@linux-e6510:~>pidof konsole
1841 1709
landis@linux-e6510:~>top -p 1841,1709

Top will only display the 2 'konsole' processes. This is useful on a busy server via ssh, not having to pipe thru grep.

Answer 3

I run it (eg.): top -b | egrep -w 'java|mysqld'

Answer 4

I prefer the following so I can still use top interactively without having to look up the pids each time I run it:

top -p `pgrep process-name | tr "\\n" "," | sed 's/,$//'`

Of course if the processes change you'll have to re-run the command.

Explanation:

• pgrep process-name returns a list of process ids which are separated by newlines
• tr "\\n" "," translates these newlines into commas, because top wants a comma-separated list of process ids
• sed is a stream editor, and sed 's/,$//' is used here to remove the trailing comma

Answer 5

how about top -b | grep java

Answer 6

Expanding on @dogbane's answer, you can get all the PIDs for a named process with pgrep to do the following:

top -p "$(pgrep -d ',' java)"