sps man page

[Ian Boardman]

The following is a manual page for the recently distributed
program sps - show process info., by Robert Ward.  I pieced it together
from his "README" files and comments in the command parsing code.  It
is not checked rigorously against the program performance for 
disparities (bugs).  I was unable to reach him by mail to check for his
approval.  No guarantees implied.

Ian Boardman				{think,mit-eddie}!cirl!ian
Cochlear Implant Research Laboratory,	dkedd at athena.mit.edu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary
243 Charles St.
Boston, MA 02114
523-7900 x2767

P.S. '[tn]roff -man' to generate this man (L) page.

____________________________________ cut here ___________________________

.TH SPS L
.SH NAME
sps \- show information about processes
.SH SYNOPSIS
sps [ -defgijkoqrsvwyABFNPSTUWZ ][ process|tty|user ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.LP
.I Sps
is a intended to be used as a replacement for the standard 
.I ps(1)
program. Its advantages over
.I ps(1)
are that it shows more useful
information and that it is faster.
.LP
.I Sps
displays wait channels symbolically, rather than as hexadecimal
addresses. It also sorts processes before listing them.
The order reflects the
relationship of the processes. A child process is listed underneath its
corresponding parent and is indented to depict the exact relationship.
.I Sps
also indicates setuid processes.
.LP
.I Sps
displays such values as the resident and virtual sizes of system
processes.  It accepts a whole range of options to control the output.
By default,
.I Sps
lists information about one's own processes.  The options are:
.sp
.TP 5
.B d
Produces a disk oriented list.
.TP 5
.B e
List environment strings.
.TP 5
.B f
List the father's process id.
.TP
.B g
List the process group id.
.TP 5
.B i
Initialize (super-user only).
.TP 5
.B j
The next argument specifies the name of the information file (default
/etc/spsinfo).
.TP 5
.B k
Use a disk file such as /vmcore instead of /dev/{k}mem for accessing
kernel data.  The next argument specifies that file.
.TP 5
.B l,v
Verbose output.
.TP 5
.B o
Avoid looking at the swap device.
.TP 5
.B q
Show only the user time, not the user + system times together.
.TP 5
.B r
Repeat output every n seconds.  The next argument specifies n which
defaults to 5 if omitted.
.TP 5
.B s
Next argument specifies a symbol file rather than the default /vmunix.
.TP 5
.B w
Wide output, exceeding 79 columns.
.TP 5
.B y
List current tty information.
.TP 5
.B a,A
List all processes.
.TP 5
.B b,B
List only busy processes.
.TP 5
.B F
List only foreground processes.
.TP 5
.B n,N
No processes, just the summary line.
.TP 5
.B p,P
List only the given process ids.
.TP 5
.B S
List only stopped processes.
.TP 5
.B t,T
List only processes attached to the specified terminals.
.TP 5
.B u,U
List only processes belonging to the specified users.
.TP 5
.B W
List only waiting processes.
.TP 5
.B z,Z
List only zombie processes.
.LP
.I Sps
keeps its information in an information file. By default, this is
/etc/spsinfo. This means that it can avoid having to do an expensive
nlist() operation each time it is run. It must be reinitialised (with
the "i" option) if new users are added to /etc/passwd or if a new
version of /vmunix is installed.

.SH BUGS
.LP
*** Please make notes. ***
.SH SEE ALSO
.LP
ps (1)
.SH AUTHOR
.nf
Send all bug reports, fixes, comments and suggestions to Robert Ward at -

    Robert Ward,
    Hasler AG, Murtenstrasse 137a, CH-3008 Bern, Switzerland

Tel.:	    (031) - 65 23 19
Uucp:	    ... {seismo,decvax,ukc, ... }!mcvax!cernvax!hslrswi!robert
Bitnet:	    hslrswi!robert at cernvax.bitnet
Arpa:	    hslrswi!robert%cernvax.bitnet at WISCVM.ARPA
Edunet:	    hslrswi!robert%cernvax.bitnet at UCBJADE.Berkeley.EDU