R devel - Feb 2007 - Help with OS X (BSD) ps command

My fame package has a function that checks to see if a FAME SERVER process is
already running.  On Linux, I can do this in one of two ways:

  pid <- Sys.getpid()
  user <- Sys.info()["user"]

  cmd <- paste("pgrep -fU", user, "-P", pid,
"'FAME SERVER'")
  fameRunning <- as.logical(length(system(cmd, intern = T)))

or I can use

  cmd <- paste("ps -ef | grep", user, "| grep", pid,
                 "| grep -v grep | grep -c 'FAME SERVER'")
  fameRunning <- as.logical(as.numeric(system(cmd, intern = T)))

Mac OS X does not have pgrep, and being a BSD derivative, takes different
arguments for the 'ps' command.  I don't have access to a BSD
machine. Can
someone who does tell me the correct invocation of 'ps' to see if
'user' is
running a 'FAME SERVER' process with the R process as its parent
process?

Please don't tell me how to get pgrep for OS X, as my objective here is to
stop the CRAN test machine from complaining about my invalid ps command.

While FAME is not officially supported on OS X, I am told that it can be made
to work there.  Had I not heard this, of course, I could just answer FALSE for
OS X and be done with it.

-- 
Jeff

Most systems do not have pgrep: it is not POSIX.  From Linux:

STANDARDS
        pkill and pgrep were introduced in Sun's Solaris 7.  This
implementation is fully
        compatible.


The man pages of Darwin and many other systems are online, and linked from
developer.r-project.org.  You could do what the R developers do, and look 
at them.

However, you seem not to have looked on your own system, as my Linux
'ps'
man page tells me the BSD syntax, and I can test it on Linux's 'ps'.
I
guess you want 'ps ux'.


On Fri, 2 Feb 2007, Jeffrey J. Hallman wrote:
> My fame package has a function that checks to see if a FAME SERVER process
is
> already running.  On Linux, I can do this in one of two ways:
>
>  pid <- Sys.getpid()
>  user <- Sys.info()["user"]
>
>  cmd <- paste("pgrep -fU", user, "-P", pid,
"'FAME SERVER'")
>  fameRunning <- as.logical(length(system(cmd, intern = T)))
>
> or I can use
>
>  cmd <- paste("ps -ef | grep", user, "| grep", pid,
>                 "| grep -v grep | grep -c 'FAME SERVER'")
>  fameRunning <- as.logical(as.numeric(system(cmd, intern = T)))
>
> Mac OS X does not have pgrep, and being a BSD derivative, takes different
> arguments for the 'ps' command.  I don't have access to a BSD
machine. Can
> someone who does tell me the correct invocation of 'ps' to see if
'user' is
> running a 'FAME SERVER' process with the R process as its parent
process?
>
> Please don't tell me how to get pgrep for OS X, as my objective here is
to
> stop the CRAN test machine from complaining about my invalid ps command.
>
> While FAME is not officially supported on OS X, I am told that it can be
made
> to work there.  Had I not heard this, of course, I could just answer FALSE
for
> OS X and be done with it.
>
>
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

On Fri, 2 Feb 2007, Jeffrey J. Hallman wrote:
> My fame package has a function that checks to see if
> a FAME SERVER process is already running.  On Linux,
> I can do this in one of two ways:
>
>   pid <- Sys.getpid()
>   user <- Sys.info()["user"]
>
>   cmd <- paste("pgrep -fU", user, "-P", pid,
"'FAME SERVER'")
>   fameRunning <- as.logical(length(system(cmd, intern = T)))
>
> or I can use
>
>   cmd <- paste("ps -ef | grep", user, "| grep", pid,
>                  "| grep -v grep | grep -c 'FAME
SERVER'")
>   fameRunning <- as.logical(as.numeric(system(cmd, intern = T)))
>
> Mac OS X does not have pgrep, and being a BSD
> derivative, takes different arguments for the 'ps'
> command.  I don't have access to a BSD machine. Can
> someone who does tell me the correct invocation of
> 'ps' to see if 'user' is running a 'FAME SERVER'
> process with the R process as its parent process?
>
> While FAME is not officially supported on OS X, I
> am told that it can be made to work there.  Had I
> not heard this, of course, I could just answer FALSE
> for OS X and be done with it.
<<untested>>
cmd <- paste("ps -o user,ppid,command", "| ",
             "grep", user, "| ",
             "grep", pid, "| "
             "grep -c '[F]AME SERVER'")

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