Question

Getting PID in Bash

Asked by: aolXFT

Hi

I need to get the PID of a program from a bash script.

The Script will be something like as follows

#!/bin/bash

# I need the pid of process created by the PHP Script that follows.
php --this-option --that-option --another-option --etc
pid={what_do_I_put_in_here}

profile_filename=/tmp/apd/whatever.$pid

I think this is easy. If not, I've no problem in bumping the points.

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Asked On
2003-12-07 at 07:04:13ID20818745
Tags

pid

,

bash

,

get

Topic

Linux Programming

Participating Experts
3
Points
200
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: arjanhPosted on 2003-12-07 at 07:14:31ID: 9892019

Hi, the variable $! expands to the process ID of the most recently executed background (asynchronous) command.

So

php --this-option --that-option --another-option --etc
pid=$!

 

by: glassdPosted on 2003-12-07 at 07:17:05ID: 9892028

ksh (so probably bash) variables are:

$$        PID of current process
$PPID   PID of parent of current process
$!        PID of last backgrounded process (as mentioned above).

 

by: aolXFTPosted on 2003-12-07 at 07:32:40ID: 9892068

Hmmm, the $! variable works if I put an & on at the end to send it to the background.

I don't want to send it to the background though. I just want it to do it's job finish up, and then get it's pid.

I don't want to do anything with the pid either until the php process is finished.

 

by: khkremerPosted on 2003-12-07 at 09:15:34ID: 9892320

I doubt that you can get the PID of a process that was started in the past (and is no longer running). I guess your best bet is to modify your PHP program so that it reports it's own PID (either on stdout, so that you can assign it directly to a variable, or write it to a file with a well known location - even though your application would no longer be able to handle multiple parallel invocations)

Let's assume the PHP program is writing it's PID to stdout:

pid=`php --this-option --that-option --another-option --etc`


 

by: aolXFTPosted on 2003-12-08 at 08:54:29ID: 9897544

I don't think PHP differenciates between stdout, and stderr There will be valid output coming from stdout, that I don't want to mix with the PID reporting.

I like your idea about self reporting, though, maybe I could use an enviornmental variable. Env variables seem to lose their setting once the  program has terminated however. The reason I need this is because the Advanced PHP Debugger sends profiling information to /directory/filename.pid. I don't actually want to use different instances of this program at the same time. That is just the way the script works. I'm just trying to make a wrapper so that I can

php_profile whatever.php, and see the output,

instead of

php whatever.php
cd /directory
ls -t1
pprof {newest file}

Hmmm maybe symlinks can solve my problem, if I get PHP to make a symlink(whose name will be constant, and not dependent on the PID), to filename.pid, I can use that symlink instead.

Since that is a variation of getting the script to report its own pid, I'm accepting the suggestion from khkremer as an answer, and the others as helpful(since they may later be incorporated in, if I choose to make the script multi-user)

 

by: khkremerPosted on 2003-12-08 at 14:35:12ID: 9900150

aolXFG,
unfortunately it's not sufficient if you state in a comment that you accept a certain answer :-)

PHP has a symlink command that creates symlinks, so you should be in good shape.

 

by: aolXFTPosted on 2003-12-09 at 11:15:29ID: 9906564

Sorry about that, I was sure that I'd done the Point Splitting, I specificly remember pressing the button and filling in the 50,50,100 point values. I must have forgotten to press the submit button, :(

Ah well better late than never :)

 

by: aolXFTPosted on 2003-12-09 at 11:18:06ID: 9906588

I know now what must have happened, because it happened again.

i filled in the point values, and pressed the submit button, but forgot to select an accepted answer, it then returned me to the page, and instead of reading it again, I simply used the browser window for to get another page.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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