Difference between nice ps and top commands

Alan McKinnon alan at linuxholdings.co.za
Thu Jun 15 21:14:44 UTC 2006


On Thursday 15 June 2006 10:01, neil al wrote:
> Hi,
>
> May I know what is the difference between the 'nice ps -eo
> pid,user,time,%cup%' and 'top' command. For example when i run a
> tomcat servlet container the nice ps -eo pid,user,time,%cup%
> command will print java process has a very large cpu usage and on
> the other hand, when try the top command the java process has
> little or no cpu usage. Both commands have different output values.

ps and top are not displaying the same thing, even though the use the 
same name for them.

From the ps man page:
CODE  HEADER  DESCRIPTION

%cpu  %CPU    cpu utilization of the process in "##.#" format.
              Currently, it is the CPU time used divided by the time
              the process has been running (cputime/realtime ratio),
              expressed as a percentage. It will not add up to 100%
              unless you are lucky. (alias pcpu).

From the top man page:
k: %CPU  --  CPU usage
   The task's share of the elapsed CPU time since the last screen
   update, expressed as a percentage of total CPU time.  In a true SMP
   environment, if 'Irix mode' is Off, top will operate in 'Solaris
   mode' where a task's cpu usage will be divided by  the  total 
   number  of  CPUs.   You toggle 'Irix/Solaris' modes with the 'I'
   interactive command.

So ps calculates cpu usage by using the entire time the process has 
been running giving a broad average over time. top considers only the 
last second (by default), which can be very different from the ps 
value under heavy load.

Analogy: consider a Formula 1 car. It does 200mph down the main 
straight - this is top. It also covers the 200 mile race in 1h30min, 
and average of 133 mph - this is ps

-- 
If only me, you and dead people understand hex, 
how many people understand hex?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five




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