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NAME

       pstree - display a tree of processes

SYNOPSIS

       pstree [-a|--arguments] [-c|--compact]
       [-h|--highlight-all|-Hpid|--highlight-pid pid] [-l|--long]
       [-n|--numeric-sort] [-p|--show-pids] [-u|--uid-changes]
       [-Z|--security-context] [-A|--ascii|-G|--vt100|-U|--unicode] [pid|user]
       pstree -V|--version

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]

       Child threads of a process are found under the parent process  and  are
       shown with the process name in curly braces, e.g.

           icecast2---13*[{icecast2}]

       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 for processes but not threads.

       -A     Use ASCII characters to draw the tree.

       -c     Disable  compaction  of identical subtrees. By default, subtrees
              are compacted whenever 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. This flag will
              only work if pstree is compilied with SELinux support.

FILES

       /proc     location of the proc file system

AUTHORS

       Werner     Almesberger     <werner@almesberger.net>     Craig     Small
       <csmall@small.dropbear.id.au>

BUGS

       Some character sets may be incompatible with the VT100 characters.

SEE ALSO

       ps(1), top(1).