[SOLVED] Getting process details of something that exited

navaneethkn · 07-14-2010, 01:09 AM

I am aware about the powerful /proc file system. If I have a process id, I can easily see the details about it by browsing the /proc/<process-id>/. Consider I have a process that starts, does some job and ends. Something like "grep" or "find". How do you see the details of this process? I can't see the process id on the /proc as it will be removed from here once the process is ended.

Is there anyway to do this?

Tinkster · 07-14-2010, 01:16 AM

The short answer is: can't be done.

The logical question: what are you trying to achieve
by seeing the "status" (little sense as the word makes
for something that isn't any more) of a "exited" process?

Cheers,
Tink

navaneethkn · 07-14-2010, 01:37 AM

@Tink, thanks. I am experimenting with some random stuff. I was looking for the VmSize, VmPeak etc, basically those values that are returned from cat /proc/<process-id>/status

raskin · 07-14-2010, 01:47 AM

The point is: once the process has fully exited, there is no way even to specify it to ask questions about it - its PID can get reused, if there is such a need. And the question to you was what useful thing could you get out of it - for some of them, you can write a program that requests to get them right after process termination.